Josh Wolfe Profile picture
Feb 18 11 tweets 4 min read
1/ Releasing year-end redacted Lux quarterly letter to LPs

Our theme is: the power of ‘AND’

-raising fortress balance sheet cash + husbanding it wisely
-a coming wave of consolidation + M&A
-the macro, margin debt + market structure
-Magritte’s “Perspicacity”
-and much more…
2/ We are transitioning from CONJUNCTION…
to a period of DISJUNCTION

From “and” as neutral combination…
to “and yet” as expression of contrast

Comfort and complacency create conditions
for risk, instability + vulnerability

To FORESEE a risk is to help PREVENT its occurence
3/ We told Lux cos in 2021:

expect good AND bad market conditions AND be so well-capitalized to be unfettered by fear AND prepared to pounce

~90% of our holdings are funded into 2023

We made 136 distinct investments AND our co’s raised over $12.6B with 21 each raising >$100M
4/ In 2022 we advise

husband your cash AND consolidate your position
DO it as quietly as you can
DO it as loudly as you can—just DO it

Consolidation is the ultimate corporate “AND”
(customers, tech, market position)
so you can emerge stronger, fitter + get ready to stand out
5/ Magritte's "Perspicacity" aptly captures Lux’s unusual approach

a painter stares studiously at an egg—THAT WHICH IS
as he paints a bird on the canvas—THAT WHICH MAY BE

It's an egg—AND YET—it will be a bird
Through combination, transformation…
6/TIME ARBITRAGE—is the main advantage available to all
seized by few

Like the coupling of butterflies fluttering above AND below aware of eachother—OPAQUE to PROBABILITY—valuations fluctuate above + below volatiley

Any investment is
the pairing of an ALLOCATION + an ASSUMPTION
7/ Margin debt at $910B = highest level ever

wild swings are symptomatic of high-startle response from high uncertainty that some may know something that others don’t—when mostly NOBODY knows NOTHING

market reversion to the MEAN
MEANS a reversion to lower exit values
8/ All US recessions have been preceded by an INVERTED YIELD CURVE—though not every inverted curve was followed by a recession

We see potential for “BIFLATION”

AND
environmentalists have TOO QUICKLY overlooked the severe economic pain of switching TOO QUICKLY from coal + natgas
9/“Occupy Fed” movement is possible

Govt’s can lose control AND govts can take it

Global TECH challenges + opportunities
-US vs China vs Russia
-African continent
-Capital vs Labor
-Space Race 2.0

On “Consilience”—the unity of knowledge from different disciplines…
10/
INVENTIONS
everything NEW comes from synthetic combinations
of everything OLD

PEOPLE
all of us contain MULTITUDES
Founders can be:
brilliant AND irascible
polarizing AND genius
compassionate AND careless
wordsmiths AND inumerates
great storytellers AND terrible operators
11/
invention of new tech can solve PAST problems AND create future problems to be solved by FUTURE tech

—“Yes AND”

An overlooked science AND an unknown but hungry founding tech team AND a terrifyingly ambitious dream––its crazy!..

AND YET…that’s what we search for every day

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More from @wolfejosh

Feb 19
1/ Believe there’s growing RISK that perception of tight labor market—(with 4.5 million giving notice in November)—& rising incremental wages to attract workers back

may be due to WFH complacency combined w/rising retail stock/crypto confidence + flood of options in new startups
2/ The non-obviosu RISK is many may have been heavily margined & lured into stock trading + crypto accounts and feeling flush + confident yet were low-income and/or recent grads…
3/ Combined with a flood of growth capital into a flood of new startups with a flood of demand for talent that led to a flood of rising wages + stock packages…
Read 6 tweets
Feb 19
1/ LARRY BOCK—
Five and a half years ago longtime Lux partner, mentor, friend, father, husband, cutting-edge biotech investor, company founder––and Brooklyn-born(!) merry prankster passed….medium.com/@lux_capital/a…
2/ Larry’s email was “BioBock” (his dad’s nickname as an “OG” stockbroker for biotech in the 70s + 80s)…

Larry (legally blind w/deteriorating eye condition, Stargardts) would join Genentech as one of the first 50 employees—before launching 17 co’s from scratch + taking 14 IPO—
3/ One of my FAVE stories is how Larry had hoped to get into Princeton, Harvard, Yale—but instead was steered towards Bowdoin

He had a friend who used to prank him….This friend once had his sister pretend she was another girl Larry had a crush on— asked him out to the prom….
Read 18 tweets
Feb 14
SOME NEWS! 📰🗞️

1/ We’re PSYCHED to announce that @graceisford has joined Lux Capital as a Principal based in our NYC 🗽office––where she will be investing at the nexus of web3, data infrastructure, and AI/ML...🧵
2/ Even as we continue to plunge ever deeper into ATOMS + BITS

it’s also clear that we can’t ignore the institutions that power our society––which face their own complex challenges...
3/ Our financial system is sclerotic + undemocratic, built on pulped trees🌳 rather than code👩‍💻 + smart contracts.

Our health system 🏥remains mired in antiquated systems...
Read 7 tweets
Jan 20
1/ There are a few ‘megamacro’ trends that really matter

-Hard power (aerospace + defense *see below*) v China
-Soft power (US culture + tools for ‘Tech of Science’) v China
-Money + “low entropy” currency (USD x Fed x crypto)
-Africa, MENA, SE Asia EM
spacenews.com/chinese-satell…
2/ Climate matters alot—though climate does not have the human-generated conflict of interests

(unless world shames China for coal; and is easily solved with doubling world’s nuclear power—only cost is the loss of “environmentalists” egos + pride from their orthodoxy)

But more—
3/ More important than climate🤭—a 100yr problem that will be solved in next 50yrs (not by swapping light bulbs or neg. growth but via nuclear + electrification)

—Is cancer, heart disease, alzheimers, infectious disease (globally)= 5 + 10yr problems needing solutions now
Read 6 tweets
Jan 19
1/
Failure comes from failure to imagine failure

2 topics—
both seem sensationalist
both deserving of MORE not less attention
so that attention can lead to rallying support + action
as it has with w/some domestic injustice

1 CHINA CONCENTRATION CAMPS
+
2 TALK OF U.S “CIVIL WAR”
2/ Topic 1: China concentration camps

I quickly imagined what it was like in 1933
+ searched for resource of what US 🗞📰 might have been reporting on what the rising authoritarian power in Germany doing opening “re-education camps”…

Thankfully it exists…
3/ KEEP YOUR 👀 on the progression of the #’s in this 🧵

And why “Never Again”—-must mean NEVER AGAIN

1933“in a reconcentration camp at Dachau, Bavaria a NYT correspondent finds 2,000 Germans being “educated” at hard labor for long hrs simply for idle words of ruling powers…”
Read 21 tweets
Jan 17
MLK actual “I have a dream” speech

taken today

on limited display
@ National Museum of African American History & Culture
2/ the unintended consequences of technology.

The cotton gin which turned a single worker cleaning seeds and processing 1lb per day to 50x more productive perversely creating demand to feed the machine and fueling demand for slaves…
3/ this is video footage of KKK and white supremacists 100 years ago—1920 ago freely walking the Capitol and the Washington Monument whose base our family stood at this AM
Read 7 tweets

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