Tech Deciphered Bertrand Schmitt & Nuno G. Pedro

Is Technology intrinsically good, bad or neutral? In this episode, we will go into the depths of Technology Philosophy & Ethics, what it actually is, its historical developments, the current movements of the present and what the future likely holds. What is e/acc, what is EA? What is Degrowth? We will also discuss spiritual and religious elements, in as much as they relate to Science and Technology.Navigation:Intro (01:34)What is Technology Philosophy & Ethics? (02:33)Historical Developments (04:17)The Present (23:44)Our Views (49:06)Conclusion (54:45)Our co-hosts:Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmittNuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedroOur show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news

Subscribe To Our Podcast





1. Intro

Bertrand Schmitt

Welcome to episode 53 of Tech Deciphered. This episode will be about technology philosophy and ethics. This is a bit far from our usual topics around investment and building companies, but we felt it was an interesting moment in time, especially with the development of AI, to talk about some of this, I would say what's behind some of the reflection in tech around where we should move forward, how much we should accelerate, should we even consider a pause in some developments?



Bertrand Schmitt

Is technology intrinsically good, bad or neutral? We'll try to go into the depths of some of these questions. We'll also talk about e/acc, about EA, about degrowth, and we will also discuss some spiritual and religious elements in so far as to how they relate to science and technology.

2. What is Technology Philosophy & Ethics?

Nuno Goncalves Pedro,

Wonderful. Let's start with what is technology, philosophy, and ethics? Basically, define the philosophy of technology as a subfield of philosophy. We have a good start there. It's part of philosophy. Let's start there.



Nuno Goncalves Pedro,

It actually studies the nature of technology and its social effects. It has several branches. Ethics is probably the one that's been most published about recently. What are the ethics of AI, et cetera? Relations between science and technology, human-technology relations, there's been some interesting debates as well around that, in particular in countries like Japan who always seem to be at the forefront of some of the stuff that happens around virtual and digital things and actual humans.



Bertrand Schmitt

Are you thinking about virtual girlfriends?



Nuno Goncalves Pedro,

Virtual girlfriends, virtual wives. You could get married to virtual wives. Obviously, the political dimensions of technology has also been hotly debated recently. Who owns semiconductors? Who owns AI? Is AI centralised or not? Is this an arms race? Is this going to be a source of geopolitical danger?



Nuno Goncalves Pedro,

Obviously, there's different views around technology. There's obviously the view that technology is autonomous, but it does determine society. It's a human construct. It's co-evolutionary, so it evolves at the same time as we should, and there should be boundary conditions around it and how we evolve.



Nuno Goncalves Pedro,

Basically, this leads to anything between technophobes, people that hate technology, people that are technophilia, I'm not sure that would be the right word, but that have technophilia, that love technology like you and I, Bertrand, we love technology in some ways. Then there's people at the edges of this that go on differe...

The Apple Vision Pro is out and we each got ourselves one… Our first impressions on the early days of the Vision Pro. Will it change the world forever, like the iPhone?Navigation:Intro (01:34)Overall… TL;DRIn-depth analysisCompetition with Meta Quest 3ConclusionOur co-hosts:Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmittNuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedroOur show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture newsIntro

Subscribe To Our Podcast





Nuno G. PedroIn this episode, episode 52 of Tech Deciphered, we will talk about the Apple Vision Pro. It's now out, and both Bertrand and myself got ourselves one. So what are our first impressions on the early days of the Vision Pro? Will this revolutionise the future of input and output? Is this the new iPhone? Is this finally the product that Tim Cook has developed that shows us that he is the future of Apple? Let's start with the overall impressions, Bertrand. What are your overall impressions?Bertrand SchmittWhat are my overall impressions? It's a mixed bag, that's for sure. It's a very impressive piece of tech. I think my worry is that it has been oversold by Apple, but also by a lot of YouTubers. When you keep looking at these YouTube videos of people using it for eight hours a day, I think it's totally, utterly b******t. There is no way in hell any normal human being will put that on their head eight hours a day unless forced to do it.Nuno G. PedroUnless you're working on your neck like you're a Formula One driver or something.Bertrand SchmittExactly. You are working on your neck. Yes, it's neck training. No, more seriously, overall, and we will go more in depth later on this episode, I feel it's a great device for maybe two use cases. One is if you want to watch 3D content. To watch 3D content, 3D movies, potentially at some point 3D sports, when we get that, we don't have that yet so far, 3D concert, then I think It's awesome.Bertrand SchmittWatching 90 minutes of 3D movies, it's just an insane experience for me. It's just amazing. It's your best way to consume a Blade Runner 2049, a Dune. It's actually maybe better than in a movie theatre if you combine it with a proper headset because the audio is quite good, the bass are pretty poor. For me today, as a mainstream consumer, that's the best main use case. For businesses, there might be some reason to look at, if you are doing 3D design, to look at 3D objects in the middle of your room, I can see that as well.Bertrand SchmittBeyond that, I think we're talking about very stretch use cases. One of these could be to record a video of what you are doing and sharing that with other for training. I could see that probably for training purposes. But beyond that, at this stage, I'm not sure what's the point to put 2D panels in the middle of a 3D vision with a headset that's very heavy and very uncomfortable.Bertrand SchmittI don't know your experience, wearing the headset, but anyone telling you that this headset is nice to wear, do they have a metal head to wear that comfortably? I have no clue. I mean, I'm hopeful there will be better straps, but for me, it's still a nightmare to wear it.Nuno G. PedroYeah, this has been tested by 007 villains, so they all can send away the thing on their head. Fully agree with your assessment. It's impossible have it on your head, to be honest, even for more than an hour-and-a-half, two hours. An hour-and-a-half and two hours is already a lot. So even watching that movie, you might have to take a little break to watch that movie,

Do you remember that company that raised at $1 billion valuation and sold for $15 million? How about that one that was the “hottest thing” ever, is still around, but never really became huge. This episode is about these companies… and about why some founders and investors can make a lot of money, while their companies fail miserably.Navigation:Intro (01:34)Why “ka-ching” isn’t necessarily related to success (or failure)?The nasty onesThe ones that are still alive, but not doing greatThe ones that did ok/well, but… should they have gotten that outcome?Why don’t all companies exit?ConclusionOur co-hosts:Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmittNuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedroOur show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news

Subscribe To Our Podcast





Bertrand SchmittWelcome to Tech DECIPHERED episode 51. We are going to talk about companies that ultimately became too big to succeed. What do we mean by too big? We mean that, in most situations, they probably raised too much to end up having some level of good success. The weight of their financing weighed on them, and what could be opportunities for the right exits.Bertrand SchmittSo, Nuno, let's start about this and obviously we will talk about some pretty big companies that went under, some smaller ones that also didn't go well, and some are still alive, just absolutely not where we would have expected them a few years ago, and not enough to make everyone happy in these companies. Maybe we start by explaining a bit more what is success or failure?Nuno Goncalves PedroLet's start with the punchline today instead of... Hopefully you guys will stay for the examples because they're pretty cool. But let's start with a punchline and why cashing isn't necessarily related to success or failure. Why success sometimes on paper isn't success in the end. It ain't over until the fat lady sings. Probably not a very appropriate expression any more, but it really ain't over until the company actually liquidates and everyone's made their money, et cetera.Nuno Goncalves PedroLet's start with first principles: the first thing is a valuation on paper, a company is raising a private round of funding, a series B, a series C, a series D from venture capital investing, investors, even IPO ing, even going public into the stock market.Nuno Goncalves PedroThe valuation before any liquidation and an IPO would be an effective liquidation. Any valuation before a liquidation is on paper. It means what it means. It means that someone is willing to pay a certain price per share for the company at that valuation of the company. It doesn't mean the company is actually worth that. It means there are certain actors that think that the company is worth that.Nuno Goncalves PedroWhat it means is you can raise a ton of money, and in particular, you can raise a ton of money at a lot of valuation. You can be a unicorn on paper, so worth over a billion dollars. You can be a decacorn worth over $10 billion on paper. But that's all on paper until there's liquidation, be it an IPO, a full on trade sales where someone buys you out, et cetera, et cetera. Basically, it ain't done yet.Nuno Goncalves PedroNow, why isn't cashing necessarily related to success? Why do people still make money? Well, people still make money because other things happen in the life of the company. When a company is raising, potentially series b or series c, it might be that certain investors or certain executives or founders of the company do what is called a secondary transaction.

That episode… the 50th, the big 50. We go back to the past and look into the future: was 2023 as bad as it gets? Is there some good or silver lining in front of us in 2024? These and more questions answered in our recap and looking forward episode. Navigation:Intro (01:34)Looking Back to 2023 (02:00)Looking Ahead into 2024 (32:05)Conclusion (48:20) Our co-hosts:Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmittNuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedroOur show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news

Subscribe To Our Podcast





NunoWelcome to episode 50 of Tech DECIPHERED, the big 50, 5-0. Today, we will do a recap of 2023 and what to look forward to in 2024. Although this is actually not really our 50th episode, because of how we've done the numbering scheme over time and we've changed it back and forth. Let's just call it our 50th episode and celebrate and take advantage of that. 2023, what a hell of a year, Bertrand. BertrandYes, indeed. What a hell of a year. Maybe we can start about the positives of 2023. NunoYes, that would be fast. No, I'm kidding. BertrandGood news is that I'm not sure if it's fully behind us, but definitely COVID-19 is mostly under control. It feels less in the news these days, either mainstream media or Twitter. It looks like people are back to a more normal life, back to getting the flu or whatever cold you might get, but at least it feels like a cancer-distant memory, but less impacting our daily lives. NunoWe put COVID-19 behind us. I was just watching or catching up on a TV series, The Good Fight. They did this funky thing starting, it's season five maybe, which is literally the whole episode is like a previously on, but we never saw that. They basically did a whole year into 50 minutes of an episode, and they presented it as previously on, as if we'd watched it before, which we have never watched it, which is very funny. It was actually scary. We were scared for our lives and what was going to happen next. That was 2020. NunoThen 2021, we started rebalancing and things started looking a bit better. Last year was like, "Oh, let's just go back to the normal world." This year, we're full throttle. It's the big vindication. Everyone's travelling a lot. I'm sure it's going to be a mess over Thanksgiving. We're close to Thanksgiving right now. Everyone's back to travelling. COVID is a little bit behind us. Some people are taking booster shots. Have you taken your booster shot yet, Bertrand? BertrandI have. NunoI have as well. BertrandFlu shot. NunoFlu as well. Yes, cool stuff. Some may have not, I'm pretty sure. Some people are getting COVID again, but things do seem to be under control. That's a big, heavy burden that we're not really inside anymore. We'll see what happens in the next few years. Fingers crossed. I'm knock-on-wood type stuff because honestly, we can't declare victory. NunoThe second very positive thing is, besides we did talk about recession. We talked about economy imploding. It really did not. It's been an up-and-down year, but the economy did not implode. If something economic activity has now picked up again and there's no signals of recession, and again, fingers crossed on that, which I guess is good and bad. We'll come back to the bad in a bit, but it's mostly good. BertrandYeah, it's good news. The question is why, obviously, and can it still happen? Definitely, I came in this year with a more negative outlook, at least for the US. Because if we talk about some other countries, some other countries might have a pretty bad year, actually.

What is an exit? You need to sell your company or sell some of your shares? How is the market for that, right now? All things M&A, IPO, Secondaries, etc. 

Navigation:



Intro (01:34)

What is an exit? (02:17)

Stats on M&A and IPOs (17:50)

What’s ahead? (42:02)

Conclusion (59:48)



Our co-hosts:



Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt

Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro



Our show:

 

Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news

Subscribe To Our Podcast





Bertrand SchmittWelcome to Tech DECIPHERED Episode 49. This will be our Exit episode. What do we mean by exit? Exit, it's really when you need to provide liquidity to your shareholders. It's when you sell your company as a whole. You sell some shares in a public market, meaning that ultimately that will provide not as fast liquidity as getting acquired, but will provide liquidity for those that want to leave the business as shareholders in a gradual way. In this episode, we are going to talk about all things M&A, IPO, secondaries. But let's start with more details about what is an exit. Nuno Goncalves PedroMore generically, an exit is on the eye of the beholder. An exit for a company, as you mentioned rightfully so, is the sale of normally most of its stock. It could be not all of the stock; sometimes it is all of the stock. It could be a sale of most of its stock or the taking that stock public in some way. Nuno Goncalves PedroWe'll come back to this notion of what selling stock means, but in general, selling stock, even when you go IPO, there is a selling of stock. There is a transformation of stock in some way. But it could be for an investor. What is an exit for an investor? Or what is an exit for a founder of a company? In that case, I would say an exit is, again, when you sell the majority of your stock that you have for that specific entity. Nuno Goncalves PedroFor a founder, it would be, "I'm selling most of my stock in that company." For an investor, "I'm selling most of my stock in that company." We could then basically say, is it a full exit or not? But it's an active element of liquidation at scale. For me, takes into account majority. It takes into account that the majority of what you put or that you have, you've sold. A liquidation means you've liquidated part of your position. It could be actually a very small amount of stock. That is the definition of exit and the definition of liquidation. Nuno Goncalves PedroThere's different types of exits and elements of liquidation. There's mergers and acquisitions whereby two companies—normally it's two companies—come together as a merger. We always talk about this notion of mergers of equals. There is rarely mergers of equals. There is always one party that is slightly bigger than the other. Even in the case of a merger, there is one party that in some ways is acquiring the other. Then there's straight-up acquisitions, the ability for a company to acquire another company and take over that company. That's M&A. Nuno Goncalves PedroIn M&A, normally the majority of stock is taken by the acquirer or by the entity that is merging that is slightly larger than the other one. There's what we call a change of control. The entity that got sold is now taken by the new entity or by the entity that bought it. That's a change of control. A lot of people know the sexier type of exits, which is IPOs. Nuno Goncalves PedroAn IPO stands for initial public offering.

So you’re starting a company? You’re now officially a founder. What should you do first? In episode 48, we will share our views on culture and why it “eats strategy for breakfast”, our thoughts on structure and legal framework for your new baby/start-up and on what 2nd+ time founders do differently.Navigation:Intro (01:34)“Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast” (01:54)Structure / Legal (16:27)2nd time founders, what do they do differently? (29:37)Conclusion (35:35) Our co-hosts:Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmittNuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedroOur show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news

Subscribe To Our Podcast





Nuno Goncalves PedroWelcome to Episode 48, the second and last episode on day zero as a founder. What should I do? In this episode, we'll discuss how culture eats strategy for breakfast, how you should think through the structure of your entity and the legality of your entity. And finally, we'll land on second-time founders. What do they do differently? Nuno Goncalves PedroLet us start with culture eats strategy for breakfast. This is actually a quote that has to be attributed to one of my professors at Stanford, Robert Pilgarman, one of the great professors of strategy in academia. He always used to say it. I'm probably paraphrasing him wrong but, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." And his point was you can define the best strategy ever, but your company culture, if it's going in a very different direction that doesn't allow you to align the execution with a strategy you have set forth, that culture will win and the strategy will never work. Bertrand SchmittI totally agree. I don't see it either way. You have to build your strategy in the constraints of what your team can achieve. Obviously, you can always arrange things a bit. You can hire more people, you can bring different types of people on board. But culture is typically very hard to change, and hopefully you have the right culture. If it's way beyond what your culture is able to achieve, that will be a problem. Let's take some examples. If you have a culture of being very careful about your spend, think about Amazon in the early days. Nuno Goncalves PedroStill today? Bertrand SchmittStill today. I remember earlier, I don't think they still do it today, but they would use, I think, some doors that they buy on the cheap and that they use as a desk, as a surface for your desk. That's a very distinct type of culture where you try to optimize cost everywhere. Bertrand SchmittThere are other ways to optimize cost, by the way. If you look at how they pay employees, stock options the first two years, for instance, they won't invest much. It will be on year three, year four. That's not typical, to be clear. But the analysis was most people stay two years or less. We better don't give too much in term of stock because it's valuable. We will only give stock to people who are staying for the long run with us. Bertrand SchmittMy point here is if you have that culture, you won't be going, for instance, in the luxury business. Good luck trying to go to sell luxury products with a culture of optimizing cost to the bones. My point is you have to align the two together. You have to understand what type of products we're willing to deliver, and you have to have a culture that match it. Hopefully, early on, you need to have a good instinct about your type of product, your type of market, and therefore, the type of culture that's necessary and hire the people who would be a good match with this culture.