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Ben’s List 20

I started reading The Emperor’s New Mind by Roger Penrose a few months ago and got captivated by the physicist’s statement that machines can’t be conscious.

In this week’s list, you’ll find a very similar argument exposed by David Hsing:

AI that takes on extremely close likeness to human beings in both physical appearance, as well as behavior, should be strictly banned in the future. Allowing them to exist only creates a world immersed in absurd paranoia.

Check out the link below for the full article and a recollection of thoughts experiments such as the Chinese Room and the Symbol Manipulator.

We also cover community, Big Tech, startup sales, venture capital, design and the creator economy.

Bonus game at the end of the list if you’re missing international travel as much as I am.

AI

Artificial Consciousness Is Impossible

“A claim that all things are conscious (including an AI) as a result of universal consciousness would be conflating two categories simply due to the lack of terms separating them. Just because the term ‘consciousness’ connects all things to the adherents of universal consciousness, doesn’t mean the term itself should be used equivocally.”

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Big Tech

Big Tech tax burdens are just 60% of global average

“Countries have been competitively cutting corporate tax rates in an effort to attract global companies. These successive cuts have lightened their burden in what critics call ‘a race to the bottom.’ Meanwhile, companies, particularly in the U.S. and Europe, have spent their tax windfall mainly by rewarding shareholders through stock buybacks and other means. This has contributed to growing wealth and income inequality.”

Inside the rise of ‘Free Speech’ anti-Facebook platforms across Central Europe

“The biggest offenders of press freedom are now posing as defenders of free speech.”

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Can Apple change ads?

“Apple regards itself not just as a platform provider but as a system provider. Your iPhone is a system, and Apple decides how it works and what developers can do on it, and just as Apple controls security, wireless networking, power management or multi-tasking, it also controls privacy.”

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Creator Economy

From Winner Take All to Win and Help Win: the Original Vision of the Internet is Making a Comeback

“We’re currently living through a shift in the business model of the Internet, from ad-revenue to direct-to-creator monetization. We can’t underscore enough how profoundly this alters incentives – platforms are now less focused on driving eyeballs and more focused on building tools that make creators money.”

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Community

Micro-Communities – and why you should start one too

“Take a moment to imagine you had the chance to meet other successful people and be a part of their journey. This includes taking part in brainstorming content and strategy ideas, helping each other grow, and acquire other perspectives — the ROI is almost immeasurable.”

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How Dunbar’s Number Makes Or Breaks A Community

“Dunbar’s number is the cognitive limit of the number of stable relationships someone can have. It is commonly known as 150, although the practical number for a community is lower because people always have relationships elsewhere. 150 is the max where a large amount of time is being spent on ‘social grooming.’”

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A Slice of Life in My Virtual Community

Old but good: “…community is a matter of the heart and the gut as well as the head. Some of the most important learning will always have to be done by jumping into one corner or another of cyberspace, living there, and getting up to your elbows in the problems that virtual communities face.”


Venture Capital

PODCAST: Global VC view: Funding startups in the next normal

“The boom that tech startups have been experiencing has continued through the pandemic. Two leading venture capitalists talk about how investing in them is changing.”

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Sales

All Things Sales! 16 Mini-Lessons for Startup Founders

“In this series of snack-sized videos — which you can watch all together, or mix-and-match for your particular questions and needs — Levine distills the fundamentals that every founder should know about sales. The 16 lessons in this “mini-MOOC” offer everything from definitions to concrete guidance for the following”


Design

On Building a Fluid User Interface

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Game

City Guesser – Can you guess what city you’re in?

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Events 2 days ago

Last week, I spent three days at Bits and Pretzels in Munich — a startup-focused event with a distinctly Bavarian flavor. Think Oktoberfest meets startup conference, complete with dirndls, lederhosen, and more beer than you might expect. As someone building an AI-powered event platform, I went in with a specific mission: Observe how startups actually market themselves at events. Here’s what I discovered: GoodBytz: The power of good demos What they did: Robotics startup GoodBytz set up a booth where its robots prepared kaiserschmarrn (a traditional German dessert) all day long. Why it worked: Nothing beats seeing a product in action. While other booths had brochures and demos, GoodBytz’s robots were actually cooking. The smell, the movement and the end result stirred together an experience that people will remember and talk about. The lesson: If you have a physical product, show it in action. The old writing adage generalizes well: Show, don’t tell.  Let people see, hear and touch the product. WeRoad: The bathroom hack What they did: Posted “Missing Investor” flyers in bathroom stalls with QR codes pointing to their website. Why it worked: Pure genius. Every startup at the event was looking for investors, but the “Missing Investor” headline, while a bit on the nose, proved irresistible. Plus, bathroom stalls are one of the few places where people have 30 seconds to actually read something. The lesson: Think about where your target audience’s attention will remain undivided. Sometimes, the most effective marketing leverages the most unexpected places. Emqopter: Visual impact matters What they did: Designed a bright orange booth that displayed their drone prominently. Why it worked: In a sea of grey, white, beige and brown, Emqopter’s bright orange booth was impossible to overlook. The drone was real, too, and proved a real conversation starter. The lesson: Your booth is competing with hundreds of others. Make it visually distinctive and ensure your product is the hero. Quests: Community building using the product What they did: Created a busy, branded booth with accessories (toy car, traffic cones, a bulletin board) and used their anti-loneliness app to build communities among founders at the event. Why it worked: Quests used their product to solve a real problem right at the event, and the busy booth design generated energy and curiosity. The lesson: Use your product to solve a problem at the event — if it’s possible, of course. Demonstrate your value in real time. Dyno: Event-themed marketing What they did: Distributed branded electrolyte packs with the tagline “Your hangover ends. Your pension lasts – with Dyno.” Why it worked: Dyno aligned its messaging perfectly with the Oktoberfest theme. Every attendee was thinking about beer and hangovers, so Dyno’s goodies were quite relevant. The tagline was clever, memorable, and directly addressed a pain point most people at the event might have to deal with later. The lesson: Tailor your marketing to the event’s theme and culture. The more you tie your messaging and product to the context, the more memorable you become. So, what did I learn? Event marketing is about more than just showing up and setting up a booth; you have to understand your audience and create experiences that people will remember. Here’s what really struck me: most startups and even big companies don’t know how to leverage events properly. They book the booth, show up and hope for the best; maybe they bring some branded pens and a pop-up banner. Then they’ll go back home and wonder why they spent €5,000 in exchange for 50 business cards that never convert. The startups that stood out at Bits and Pretzels understand something fundamental: event ROI isn’t about booth size or location; it’s about strategy, creativity and planning. None of the startups above improvised on-site, or planned something the night before the event in their hotel rooms. They laid everything out 4-6 weeks before the event. A solid pre-event strategy is what separates successful event marketing from expensive booth rental.  But what matters most for early-stage startups is that you don’t need a massive budget to stand out. WeRoad’s bathroom stall hack probably cost €50 to print the flyers. A standard booth package at Bits and Pretzels would go for €3,000 to €5,500. The ROI difference is staggering when you compare the cost per meaningful conversation. That’s the difference between simply spending money and investing smartly. Building Sesamers has taught me that helping startups find the right events is only half the equation. The other half is helping them understand how to maximize ROI once they’re there. Good props aren’t a marketing expense; they’re opportunities to meet customers, investors and partners, and strike up engaging conversations.

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New Materials 3 days ago

Lios Group, the Irish startup behind SoundBounce, was a winner of JEC Composites Startup Booster 2018, and has been making significant strides since taking home the award.

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New Materials 1 week ago

Tree Composites aims to accelerate the energy transition with innovative composite joints.

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