#MentalNote · Current Events · Education · History · Self-Revelation · Why?

Sapiens and the Oscars

9 years ago Author By cumeadi

I have very few newsletters that I hold in such high esteem as Farnam Street. If you enjoy thinking about things in new ways and awesome book recommendations, I suggest you sign up here. It’s so good, I’m giving a free shout out. The newsletter will change your life, but I digress.

One of the most recent book recommendations from the Farnam Street is called Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.   I haven’t gotten a chance to read the book yet but I was totally enthralled with the descriptions in the newsletters. It’s definitely on my to read list.

One of the most important takeaways from the book is captured in this short quote below:

What was the Sapiens’ secret of success? How did we manage to settle so rapidly in so many distant and ecologically different habitats? How did we push all other human species into oblivion? Why couldn’t even the strong, brainy, cold-proof Neanderthals survive our onslaught? The debate continues to rage. The most likely answer is the very thing that makes the debate possible: Homo sapiens conquered the world thanks above all to its unique language.

Most people would agree that language was a huge game changer but not for the reason you’d think:

As far as we know, only Sapiens can talk about entire kinds of entities that they have never seen, touched, or smelled. Legends, myths, gods, and religions appeared for the first time with the Cognitive Revolution. Many animals and human species could previously say ‘Careful! A lion! Thanks to the Cognitive Revolution, Homo sapiens acquired the ability to say. ‘The lion is the guardian spirit of our tribe.’ This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language…You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven. 

To Harari, the most important function of language is we can describe things we cannot see or understand. “It is our collective fiction that defines us” By doing this, human beings are better suited to work in large groups effectively and flexibly than other animals. Real world applications of this is state, religious, fraternal, or basic assumptions we take as truth.

The collective myth and our ability to believe or not, is what differentiates us from other animals. To be clear, not all of these myths are lies but some of them are. We believe them because the opposite is too difficult to handle. For example, sapiens are horrible at evaluating talent or a subjective “best”. We’ve seen it in finance, education, entertainment, and other industries. We rely on human evaluations and get burnt. We consistently overvalue and undervalue, which leads to faulty and less than ideal outcomes. If we look at this from Harari’s perspective, we’ve bought into the myth that we can make objective evaluations.

Earlier last week, the Academy released their nominees for the Oscars. There were complaints about the lack of diversity in the nominees. I agree, there should be more representation, especially from a 2015 that saw quality movies from minority leads. However, its a symptom of a larger myth; A group of industry leaders can make an objective evaluation on what are some of the best performances the year prior. I say this as a huge Will Smith, Leonardo DiCaprio and Christopher Nolan fan. (None of them have won Oscars)

I’ve started to take human informed decisions with a grain of salt. I can’t afford to buy into the idea that a group of us can make the best decision. Now, believing that is difficult to handle because it has implications larger than the Academy Awards. I’ll just let your mind wander…

Leadership

#FridayNightRants

9 years ago Author By cumeadi

Over the last couple of months, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with executives in Nigeria by way of casual lunches, after work chats, etc. One issue that resonates consistently is the lack of talent in the job force. Many executives blame Nigerian education system for not preparing students to be employable.

While I agree, the education system in Nigeria has a long way to go, it is unlike the private sector to sit on their hands in this situation. Complaining about an unemployable job force seems to be the easy way out. I believe employ-ability is a symptom of a larger issue in Nigeria; the employee/ employer relationship.

There are examples of employees that are treated like cogs on a wheel. You find someone that can do x and you just make sure they do x until you don’t need it anymore. Employees are interchangeable and that’s how companies hire. Unfortunately, this is the value of the employee in many Nigerian companies.

If Nigerian companies want to compete in the global economy, they are going to have to solve how they will take their human capital to the next level. In order to do that, companies need to rethink their relationship with their employees. Instead of looking at people as disposable, companies should work to grow and groom their employees. There are many Kenyan companies, for example, that have internal learning plans so employees are constantly improving themselves. Which brings me full circle. Nigerian students need to improve their employ-ability. However, private sector companies should look at bringing employees on and figuring out ways to invest in their future while also preparing them to be the best employees they can be.

 

 

#productideas · business · product · startups · Technology

Disrupting VC

9 years ago Author By cumeadi

2 years ago, when tiphub was started, our core team had a couple of initial assumptions that came to be true.

  1. Bootstrapping is important, however majority of disruptive technologies need early capital.
  2. Venture capital is broken. With failure rates that would not be accepted in any other industry, most vc’s continue business as usual. The best ones have found ways to de-risk their investments by leveraging marketing strategies but its not a sustainable model for all vcs in a given ecosystem.
  3. The decision making process for investment selections was purposefully arbitrary. It allows gate keepers to claim a higher power than a regular person at picking companies that have the best chance of success.
  4. Lack of diversity in decision making leads to unequal representation and missed opportunities.

Now, to throw a wrench in it all, bring in the African perspective. Not enough vc activity, not enough opportunities to invest in, not enough capital, etc etc.

The major issue with the private market is that its supposed or destined to be the engine of growth for developed and developing countries alike. However, we don’t have the correct scale-able processes, or institutions in place to really push the needle of investment at scale. The two major problems are;

  1. How do you assess risk in a way that is accurate?
  2. How do you match risk, interest, and expertise to ensure optimal outcomes?

So early on in the inception of tiphub, the idea and the hope was that we would create a platform that would exactly what is missing in the vc community. A platform that could learn, overtime, the best investments for an investor based on different inputs. We called this project tracker.

2 years later, on the anniversary of tiphub, I can say we’ve gotten to the second phase of the tracker which is a platform that will bring together experts, investors, and startups to learn from interactions, and we’ll move on to phase three, where things will start to get really interesting.

Stay tuned as we build what we hope will be a game changing platform that will improve outcomes for all entrepreneurs and investors.

 

venture capital

5 Types of Teams That Attract Investment

9 years ago Author By cumeadi

“We invest in people not ideas.”

VCs , especially those investing in pre seed or seed stage, look for a certain type of management team to de risk their investments. They believe there are few characteristics that early teams have that will make them more successful than most. From conversations and my observations, here’s what I believe are the 5 types of teams that vcs get excited about making it rain on  backing financially.

The A Team

They’ve done this before, they’ve built valuable companies and exited somehow. Whenever this group gets together, magic happens, predictable and wonderful magic happens. This next start-up they are working on may be super challenging to understand, or in an industry that has yet to be disrupted because of heavy gunned incumbents. A team with 3 or 4 notches under their belt are rare to find but when they are up to something, people get excited.

Team Credentials are Us

While most investors like to say they are apathetic to job and school credentials….Its an instinctive thin slicing gets your ears up when someone says they are ex-Google, ex-Goldman Sachs, Dartmouth Alum (not talking about anyone particularly) They’ve done what was required to get to those companies and schools and that means that they’ll do what it takes to make their idea work. It may also mean they have the connections for human and financial capital where others don’t.

Team We Lived This

They understand the problem they are trying to solve because they lived it. They worked in the industry, they know the customers, and they know the nuances to turn their idea into a valuable company. They have market knowledge that only insiders have and they have easier than usual access to their first customers.

Team Apollo

All rookies have to start from somewhere but this team has proven to be something special early on. They’ve either acquired accolades, established great traction with customers and press, or they’ve developed game changing service or product that people are excited about. They may not have the experience to know what they are on to, but investors are interested to see where they go with extra support.

Team Phoenix

Like rising from the ashes of failure, there are teams that will come together from a failed business and have it figured out. They have the collective experience and combined discipline to hit gold with their new venture.  

Closing Thoughts

Granted, the best teams have a combination of these teams mentioned previously, but I think as a start-up team, you should have a good understanding of your strengths and weaknesses as a team because the company becomes a reflection of its management team, especially in the early days.

What type of team have you assembled?