Sesame Summit 2026 – application open

Ben’s List about VC and Big Tech – Selected

I love investors and investors love me – I believe. But if you spend time on VC Twitter, it’s hard to avoid some well deserved criticism. This week, I’m sharing a bunch of articles that question the morals of venture capitalists. We’re also looking into how VCs raise funds with LPs.

As usual, I’m also sharing some articles about Big Tech and how to keep it under public scrutiny.

The case of Timnit Gebru, ethics researcher at Google, is appalling.

At the same time, DeepMind (part of the Google empire) is unveiling a breakthrough in protein modeling that will impact the lives of millions.

Don’t worry, we also provide your weekly dose of business insights in community building, newsletter, podcast and marketing.

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Book

Future Of Text 2020

A single sentence on a piece of paper does not hold the same power as a single sentence in a tweet and the ease of publishing vastly overpowers what was possible to print and read on paper.

Digital text holds real, untapped potential because of its inherent interactivity and we have a choice: We can learn to control the vast sea of digital text–or be controlled by it.

Venture Capital

Some of our readers complain about VC bashing. Guess what, we know who’s behind @VCbrags!

blog post
I’m writing this article to discuss some of the issues surrounding this account. I’m going to try to keep it as brief and to the point as possible. As I’ve mentioned in my original tweet, if you want…
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  • Link: vcbrags.medium.com/blog-post-ba33bd710d96
  • Author: VCs Congratulating Themselves

How Venture Capitalists Are Deforming Capitalism

Even the worst-run startup can beat competitors if investors prop it up. The venture capital firm Benchmark helped enable WeWork to make one wild mistake after another—hoping that its gamble would pay off before disaster struck.

How Venture Capitalists Are Deforming Capitalism
Even the worst-run startup can beat competitors if investors prop it up. The V.C. firm Benchmark helped enable WeWork to make one wild mistake after another—hoping that its gamble would pay off before disaster struck, Charles Duhigg writes.
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The VC “Strips off” – Silicon Roundabout Ventures VC Fund Deck Reviewed Live by Draper Esprit LP

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Alternative Assets

Window shopping for expired Domain Names

Want to Build a Side Business? Just Buy a Great Domain Name

Window shopping for expired Domain Names

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Politics

Democratic Source Code for a New U.S.-EU Tech Alliance

I found this one particularly relevant to our Selected Salon with Dr. Jen Schradie.

Democratic Source Code for a New U.S.-EU Tech Alliance
The incoming Biden administration should seek to build a U.S.-EU alliance that will hardwire democratic governance into everything digital.
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We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google. Here’s what it says

The company’s star ethics researcher highlighted the risks of large language models, which are key to Google’s business.

We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google. Here’s what it says
The company’s star ethics researcher highlighted the risks of large language models, which are key to Google’s business.
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Marketing

Social media predictions for 2021

  • There will be more censorship (ie: Twitter) and less censorship (ie: Parler)
  • Community and commerce will converge
  • The rise of implicit social networking
  • There will be two breakout audio social networks
  • Paying for social will become the norm
  • We will see one breakout crypto community
  • There will be 1-2 new novel ways of hanging out virtually
  • TLDR; social is becoming “stretchy”

Social media predictions for 2021
Social apps are changing rapidly. Really rapidly. Here are a few of my predictions as to how social apps will continue to evolve in 2021. There will be more censorship (ie: Twitter) and less censorship (ie: Parler) Parler is like Twitter but with zero censorship. It’s the Mecca for the deplatformed,…
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The Online Community Engagement Ladder

The community engagement ladder is a framework that acknowledges that members interact with your community in different ways, and creates opportunities for them to interact, regardless of how engaged they’re able to be at any given time.

The Online Community Engagement Ladder
Creating engagement opportunities for every community member For communities that are just getting started, building a base of engaged members is a primary focus. As a community builder, you’ll figure out what engagement tactics are most effective with your community through trial and error. And, yo…
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Strategy

The Unusual Signs of a Billion Dollar Company, with Elad Gil

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Newsletter

Peak Newsletter? That Was 80 Years Ago

Radical poets like Allen Ginsburg used mimeographs to sell chapbooks, while genre aficionados relied on them to print science-fiction fanzines. Mimeographs also fueled the growth of marginalized communities: Some of the earliest gay publications, like the 1950s lesbian newsletter The Ladder, ran on the machine.

Peak Newsletter? That Was 80 Years Ago
In the 1940s, journalists fled traditional news outlets to write directly for subscribers. What happened next may be a warning.
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Science

Contemplating the End of Physics

One could argue, the seeds that led to these discoveries were all planted in the good old days. Black holes and gravitational waves are direct consequences of the equations Albert Einstein discovered in 1915. Maybe physics has run out of original ideas?

Contemplating the End of Physics
Has physics reached the limits of what we can discover — or are the possibilities only just beginning?
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DeepMind’s AI makes gigantic leap in solving protein structures

“This is a big deal,” says John Moult, a computational biologist at the University of Maryland in College Park, who co-founded CASP in 1994 to improve computational methods for accurately predicting protein structures. “In some sense the problem is solved.”

‘It will change everything’: DeepMind’s AI makes gigantic leap in solving protein structures
Google’s deep-learning program for determining the 3D shapes of proteins stands to transform biology, say scientists.
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Podcast

Meet the young podcast generation

“Our ultimate goal is to make sure everyone feels like they’re a part of a worldwide community and gets an opportunity to share their stories first-hand.” – Ekram Esmael

WADUP

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Seasonal

8 Hours of 4K footage and ASMR audio of a cozy fireplace

Because when you can’t have an actual fireplace, this is the next best thing.

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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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