You can outperform most venture funds by buying LEGO.
I analyzed the last 20 years of secondhand LEGO pricing data, and found randomly purchasing sets will match most VC's returns
if you're somewhat intentional about what you buy-- you massively outperform even the best firms
I pulled data on 16,000 LEGO releases since the year 2000. I dropped any promotional items, duplicate items, or any other oddballs. This got me down to 10k or so.
For each, I then pulled in resell data from bricklink for each item to get current market price (ebay prices higher)
This allowed me to calculate a net IRR, assuming you bought it at release, and held it until 2023.
The VC benchmark data is sourced from the Cambridge Associates
recent years are iffy because of extreme paper markups (30%+ mean IRR). The data seems best through 2010/2015
In most years, random purchasing rivaled the returns of the median venture fund.
If you just blindly bought certain themes, you can consistently generate double digit IRR across all vintages. For most, resale was high enough at EOY1 that these strategies would be obvious.
Dollar value, and piece count, seem to have less effect on present resale value.
But other strategies seem possible.
Applying modest statistical methods, on like two years of data, leads to finding strategies producing 20%+ irr over 10y+
the world of super alternative assets is hilariously vast and probably deeply unexplored.
there are paths towards transcendence (a hamptons compound w/ a 1974 Land Rover Series III) that involve deploying capital at things other than b2b software
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1) moral alignment matters more than incentive alignment
people focus too much on aligning incentives. incentives are messy and can hardly be aligned. find people you share convictions and faith with, and keep working with them for long amounts of time. it'll work out.
2) even on long days, it should be fun
there's a difference between challenging and exhausting. the best people are extremely challenging, but never exhausting, and always in enough control of their emotions to know when to step back after a long day.
within months you will be able to buy genomics data from 14 million americans for +/- $200m?
the inevitable fire sale of this mess to an overseas PE firm is going to be a national security matter on the scale of which we haven't seen in healthcare in years
in general, hhs has left open a dangerously large hole around healthcare data sales
the reg we have now are so deeply embedded in precision oncology/2010s-RWD that they are completely unprepared to address what post-LLM healthcare data sales will actually mean
ONC should build federal data lake, incentivize state funded systems to contribute, allow companies to access these data for training/benchmarking but not directly touch/view the data.
use this as a backdoor to build a non-SAMD regulatory pathway for healthcare AI.
The Executive Order on AI issued by the White House today represents the beginning of a complete overhaul of the regulatory landscape for healthcare AI.
Here are my notes on what matters from the 100+ pages:
Let's start with a quick summary of the EO's requirements:
- Within 180 days, HHS shall publish a plan to promote responsible AI use in public benefits like Medicare/Medicaid. The plan should address access to benefits, notice, evaluation for unjust denials, etc
(Section 7.2b)
- Within 365 days, HHS shall establish an AI safety program that partners with Patient Safety Organizations to create a framework for capturing clinical errors caused by AI, analyzing data, and developing informal guidance aimed at avoiding these harms.
healthcare is having its top deck of the titanic moment
what happens in the next year will define the next century of american healthcare, and basically everyone is ignoring it.
here's the real story:
Healthcare has been defined by four factors: 1. Extremely limited supply (MDs are scarce and costly). 2. Principal-agent problem with payments (your insurance pays, not you). 3. Inelastic demand and high trust (you need it and have confidence in it). 4. Regulatory capture.
this has allowed the industry to behave in incredibly weird ways
cost can constantly grow, patient experience can constantly degrade, and clinics will still fill up with waitlists.
because patients trust it, need it, aren't paying for it, and have no choice.