1 / Reading

A few books and one article:

• Chris Bayly's The Birth of the Modern World: 1780 - 1914
• Duff Cooper's Talleyrand
• William Boyd's An Ice-Cream War
• Venkat Rao’s essay “Cognitive Farmsteading”

2 / Building

Launched the public-facing website of Strata, Portico's AI-augmented deal assessment tool.

Over the last 6 weeks we've taken it from a static PDF report to an interactive dossier that narrows the confidence interval around a decision, faster.

We built it out of our own experience analyzing companies across the energy system, which are harder to underwrite than software businesses: the capital intensity and regulatory hurdles are higher, the sales cycles are longer and often for concentrated customer bases, and the technology assessment is harder.

Now looking for design partners to extend the modules and rubrics to other verticals.

Send me a note if you're screening deals and want a demo!

3 / Listening

Marino Canal's Luxor (Soundcloud | YouTube)

4 / Number

5%

of VCs account for 90% of investment profits.

Also, "fewer than 40% of VCs with any investments are ever credited with a successful investment."

• Human Capital in Venture Capital: Evidence From 100,000 Venture Capitalists

Thanks for reading!

Hit reply! I read every response.

Let me know what you’re reading, building, and/or listening to.

Abrazos,
Mike