The Bulletin #3: Dumb Memes, Smart Queens, and Everything In Between
What We’re Reading in Venture
Articles/books we’ve enjoyed
Activists, pundits, politicians, and the press frequently proclaim today's digitally mediated racial justice activism the new civil rights movement. As Charlton D. McIlwain shows in this book, the story of racial justice movement organizing online is much longer and varied than most people know. In fact, it spans nearly five decades and involves a varied group of engineers, entrepreneurs, hobbyists, journalists, and activists. But this is a history that is virtually unknown even in our current age of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Black Lives Matter.
Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software
Open source communities are increasingly centered around the work of individual developers rather than teams. Similarly, if creators, rather than discrete communities, are going to become the epicenter of our online social systems, we need to better understand how they work and we can do so by studying what happened to open source.
TLDR: creator engagement and being able to talk with people that you admire and respect is something that podcasts potentially lack. The creator economy is going in this direction and it’ll be exciting to see what innovation happens in this area.
People to follow:
Smart people whose Twitter feeds we like to stalk
Alexis Alston: VC @ Lightship Capital (and one of our fabulous advisers)
Arlan Hamilton: Founder of @Backstage Capital, all around badass
Memes
Because venture capital memes are a very real thing
Video/Audio
A video or podcast about VC because reading is hard sometimes
You maybe love him, you maybe know him, but regardless of that, he’s Chamath and he’s here to stay
Check out everything we have to say on market trends, startups, venture, and everything in between
Associate Ria Panjwani '23 on SPAC’s
Associate Danny Adkins ‘21 on AgTech
Associate Casey Shay ‘23 on The Future of Sustainable Investing
Co-director Asif Khan ‘21 on our recent investment in Projector
Brown Student Spotlight
Highlighting members of our community who are absolutely killing it
Sasha Pinto ‘21
Q: Who are you?
A: I’m a beekeeper, writer, artist, fashion-loving cinephile, Kenyan-American national, and New Yorker. Not necessarily in that order. And at Brown, the hats I wear are president of Fashion at Brown (F@B), co-director of Ivy Film Festival (IFF), and Literary Arts concentrator.
At this moment, I’m in the throes of operating Brown Fashion Week ’21 with its 25 high-level speakers and 15 different events. Given the isolation of the last year, I had a goal spreading some much-needed inspiration and community around campus and it has been gratifying to see how leaders in the fashion and lifestyle industries have joined our mission. And Ivy Film Festival, which follows a few short weeks later, will continue the inspiration.
Q: Most game-changing experience/class/activity at Brown?
A: My experiences with IFF and F@B have been exceptional training grounds for the world that awaits after graduation, while studying with Barrett Hazeltine in ENGN 9 and as a TA and reading James Joyce’s Ulysses with Paul Armstrong have provided me with epiphanies that will last well beyond Brown.
Q: Favorite piece of advice
A: “Take a class in every department.” And at a time when many students are feeling the pre-professional pressure to narrow their focus into an expertise as an undergraduate, I am pleased that I did just the opposite and focused on the value of a true liberal-arts education.
Q: Role Model/ Person you’re obsessed with
A: Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Role models like Justice Ginsburg come around once in a lifetime if we’re lucky. I’m also in awe of women who go out of their way to amplify and support other women professionally -- and Sandra Campos, the ex-CEO of the Diane von Furstenberg fashion house, is a paradigm of personal and professional generosity in her mentoring and championing of women starting out in business.
Q: One daily habit that you can’t live without (think: meditation, morning coffee, etc.)
A: Riding my bike and walking my dog although I rarely ride my bike these days and my dog isn't in Providence. In other words, I don’t have one. But in a post-Covid world, I look forward to reading a newspaper and sipping tea in a bustling diner again.
VWV Wishlist
Here we will list all of the features and products we wish entrepreneurs would make for us
A VC meme generator (because I’m tired of digging for memes)
A computer vision tool that analyzes term sheets
Searchable Twitter DM’s