Winnowing Nuance from Noise

4 responses to “Winnowing Nuance from Noise”

1. 

   jurvetson

   May 23, 2020 at 2:19 am

   with a little white-boarding… like water-boarding for the squirrel brain 🙂

   Reply
2. 

   sbove

   May 23, 2020 at 6:27 pm

   Great conversation, cool v-whiteboard tech. Rule: leave the party (e.g. Internet deals C 2000) early (as the s/n ratio goes through the roof), but don’t forget to keep an eye on the scene once every one’s gone b/c sometimes you find a Goog, Fb, Twitter forming in the post-super-nova swirl…

   Reply
3. 

   jurvetson

   May 24, 2020 at 1:57 pm

   Yes, the simple rule of investing in things I have never seen before has me moving on when a sector starts to overheat, at precisely the right time, when it would be difficult to see if making money was the only objective. The mind plays tricks on you in a bubble. The pursuit of novelty pierces the cognitive dissonance.

   Reply
4. 

   jurvetson

   Oct 14, 2020 at 5:25 pm

   A crisis can help us overcome the activation energy to change the world… From today’s WSJ:

   "Coronavirus Pandemic Speeds Shift to Cleaner Energy.

   The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects renewables to provide 80% of the growth in global electricity demand through 2030.

   “Solar is now the new king of electricity markets,” said IEA executive director Fatih Birol. Of low interest rates, he added: “This is very important for clean energy technologies as they require relatively high upfront costs. Putting these things together we are seeing a big boom in renewable energies.”

   Spending on oil and gas has fallen much more than investment in renewables, according to the IEA. BP predicted that oil demand may have peaked right before the pandemic. “The pandemic I believe only adds to the challenge of oil in the future,” BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney said earlier this year. He suggested changed habits such as working from home and reduced travel could stick, thereby reducing fuel demand permanently.

   The next decade will be crucial in determining whether the transition to clean energy pushes “emissions into structural decline,” the IEA report said.

   “We’re at a precipice, we can invest in the things that make our world safer or we can stick our heads in the sand,” said Angela Anderson, director of the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The opportunity is there. The cost barriers are dwindling and consumer resistance to change is far less than we’ve seen in the past.”

   Reply