#63 | VC/Startup Matching, Asia Trip, Motivation & Energy

Nov 08, 2023

Winter is coming! Solid 18C/64F in Lisbon today. Not quite the -40C/-40F contestants reached in Alone, but enough for a sweater.

1. WORK

Climate Tech Summit Results

It’s finally done! Results have been great. Here is a quick recap of the activities:

Online Summit: 100 speakers, 12 hours of content, 10,000 registrants. I interviewed Iceland’s Minister for Innovation, and moderated a panel of emerging markets investors. Other great sessions: nuclear, energy storage, carbon removal and more. Videos are here as well as podcasts (made using some AI).
Virtual Matchmaking: a VC/startup virtual matchmaking produced by yours truly. A stunning 1,800+ participants (including 800+ VCs - it’s not a typo). An estimated 3,500 meetings took place and I received feedback like “this event was insanely valuable”. Due to popular demand, we will likely host another in April. Register your interest here.
Receptions: we hosted 6 VIP events in SF, NY, Newark, London, Tokyo and Singapore. About 1,000 people RSVPs. It’s nice to meet in the flesh once in a while :)

Next up: Industrial Tech Matchup (Dec 4-8, 2023)

Our virtual VC/startup matchmaking events have done great so we’re adding industrial tech to the list after Climate and Health.
The event has just been announced and over 200 investors signed up within the first 24 hours!
If you’re a founder or investor active in that space you’re welcome to sign up as well. Our definition of industrial tech is pretty broad - robotics, chemical industry, IoT, textile, etc.
Registering early will give you more visibility in our matching system.

WebSummit

I’m around and speaking at a couple of panels. I’ll also attend some side events. Maybe see you there!

2. EXPERIENCES

Coding

Two of my coding projects went “live” recently. Excited to see what GPT 4 Turbo can do now!

Recommendation engine for investors
How to get investors to book more meetings during our virtual matchmaking events? For our Climate Tech matchup I coded a matching system and sent personalized recommendations, which led to more meetings. I will build on this in upcoming events. Note: I initially explored using embeddings and GPT but realized that it wasn’t that great when you already have structured data.
Podcast generator
The Summit provided great content but few people watch it on YouTube. So I turned sessions into podcasts. Tech involved: speech to text (Deepgram), gpt-3.5 for summaries (+ human editing), voice cloning and text to speech (ElevenLabs). Each episode took less than 10 minutes to package. The 23 conference sessions are now live. What do you think?

Asia Trip

I was invited by Japan’s JETRO to coach climate tech startups (some great projects and much improved English fluency, but founding teams often lack international experience).
It had been a while since my last trip and it was nice to catch up with Tokyo, as well as Taipei and Singapore. Shinjuku - especially kabukicho - had gentrified quite a bit. LVMH next to H&M, etc. The food was great, as always, and my Japanese wasn’t too rusty, outside of karaoke performances.
I managed to train BJJ in all 3 cities. The guys (Koreans!) in Singapore were the toughest. I did not see standup comedy this time, but stopped at the newly opened and cute-sized Peranakan museum in Singapore, celebrating the hybrid culture from Southern Chinese, Malays, Indians and even Arabs. From it I got recommended a place for peranakan food nearby called True Blue. Great setting and taste. Ok prices.

3. CULTURE

MOVIES

Tampopo***

Juzo Itami is likely my favorite Japanese director. Tampopo is a timeless and charming story about a woman struggling with a ramen store, until two gourmet truckers stop by. On YouTube while it lasts.

Oppenheimer**

The politics were interesting but I was surprised so little was showed of the dynamics between the scientists, and the destruction the bombs caused. One takeaway for me was that nations serve their own changing interests and goals, and do not care too much for the individuals involved. It is also a pity that the bombs have tainted the word “nuclear” for decades. Watch Oliver Stone’s Nuclear Now as a complement.

SHOWS

Bodies** (Netflix)

Netflix told me to check out this British time-travel sci-fi thing. It was quite well produced, with good acting, but as many pointed out, ended up looking like a watered-down version of the German Dark, which was better in many ways. Season 1 was ok but I’m likely not watching Season 2.

Alphonse** (Prime)

In his usual ‘lovable idiot’ persona, French actor Jean Dujardin (watch his OSS 117 series - it’s between James Bond and Austin Powers, with French flair) plays a middle-aged married man who discovers his dad an unusual occupation. Reasonably entertaining.

Rick & Morty, Season 7** (Adult Swim)

One of the show creators, who also voiced the 2 main characters, was dismissed due to accusations that were later… also dismissed (update: new ones came to light). While the new voices are not too far off, I found the writing and storylines were worse than in previous seasons. This might be the last season for me.

Alone, Season 7** (Netflix)

Can the contestants survive alone on a lake shore in Northern Canada for 100 days with 10 items? Prepare for climate change with this show. Some contestants have mad skills, and several were taken out by bad luck rather than incompetence. This show doesn’t have the challenges and team dynamics of Naked and Afraid but it also works when fast-forwarding a fair bit.

4. THOUGHTS

Motivation & Energy

I’ve been working on ways to help youngsters acquire a growth mindset (= the confidence that (1) everything is a skill (2) skills can be learned (3) practice leads to progress). So far my approach has been to expose them to something they did not think they could do, embrace it with a beginner’s mind, and after some practice, realize that there is a path within their reach, then generalize the lesson.

Yet, it does not solve the challenge of finding the initial motivation, and the energy to take action.

For myself, I found that designing the right environment to make the desired action take place with less friction can help a lot (e.g. living less than 10min away from the gym), but the initial impulse remains challenging.

I suppose they can be improved - maybe with better feedback loops? The people I know who score high on those seem to have been wired that way from birth and can’t explain it. Suggestions are welcome!

Until next time!
— Ben

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