Sparks and surprises from last week...
Exploring the edges of our awareness to uncover the unevenly distributed future that most of us can barely imagine.
📚 Key reads
Hugo Barra, former Head of Oculus at Meta, provides an in-depth review of the Apple Vision Pro headset, praising its groundbreaking display, intuitive UI, and potential for spatial computing. However, he notes that the Vision Pro's heavy weight, lack of compelling AR apps at launch, and exclusion of immersive VR games may hinder its mass-market appeal.
The greatest double-edged sword of startups is momentum. Very little can stop you when you have it. Very little can prevent your death when you lose it.
On the surface, startups fail and succeed for a wide range of reasons, but on a deeper level, momentum is almost always the root cause.
All computer users may soon have the ability to author small bits of code. What structural changes does this imply for the production and distribution of software?
💡 Ideas
DeepMind unveiled SIMA, a generalist AI agent capable of comprehending natural language instructions and performing tasks across multiple 3D video game environments. Trained on nine different games, SIMA can generalize its skills to new, unseen games without requiring access to the game's code or APIs, aiming to develop versatile AI agents that can understand and safely execute a wide range of tasks to assist people in both virtual and real-world settings.
Extropic is developing thermodynamic chips that harnesses the natural fluctuations in matter to enable faster, more energy-efficient computing beyond the limits of traditional digital processors.
Reflect Orbital is developing a constellation of satellites to sell sunlight to thousands of solar farms after dark. Despite the price of solar cells dropping by 99.6% since 1976, solar energy only accounted for 3.9% of total electricity generation in the United States in 2023.
📊 Market data
According to a new report from RevenueCat, only 17% of subscription mobile apps reach $1,000 in monthly revenue after a year, and just 3% reach $10,000 per month. The report also found that the top 5% of apps generate 200 times more revenue than the bottom quartile, with health and fitness apps performing the best while travel and productivity apps struggle the most.
Historically (2006-2018), 63% of first-time VCs were able to raise their second fund. But VCs are founders too, and have faced a tough fundraising environment over the last 2 years. Today 12% of first-time VCs go on to raise their second fund.
Gen Z has lower expectations compared to older generations at the same age, with only 46% as of 2022 expecting to graduate with a professional degree versus 57% for Millennials and 56% for Baby Boomers. Similarly, Gen Z has lower expectations for working a professional job (52%) and owning more than their parents (54%) compared to Millennials at 61% and 60% respectively.