Life insurance normally makes people uncomfortable. Nobody wants to think about death, and especially not about the bureaucracy that comes with it. But life insurance wasn’t always like this: it used to be a force for good, a source of comfort.
Is Andreesen Horwitz’s step of renouncing its VC status a sign of the future? (Forbes April 30.19)
A16Z, like much of the VC industry, is responding to the need for greater flexibility in the modern world. Investment opportunities are not homogeneous, rather they come in all shapes and structures. Meanwhile, private markets are growing, offering more opportunities and greater demand to try new things. The move by A16Z enables it to take these opportunities and attract the best deals, by attracting a broader range of talent, driving untraditional thinking and building a differentiated brand.
Back in 2008, following an MBA project, I set out to change the way the world learns languages. Having learned Spanish and travelled across Spain and Latin America, I knew how rewarding language learning can be. But I also understood how challenging it can be, as well as the limitations of traditional learning methods.
Talis has backed some amazing companies since 2009 – including Darktrace, Luminance, Reevoo, Onfido and Iwoca – and we’ve seen thousands of companies come through our door. Right now, we have a portfolio of around 40 or so innovators who we think could have real global potential. To get to term sheet stage, we have to be laser-focused on ensuring there is a world class team, the market opportunity is there, that it’s the right timing and stage and of course that there is traction and demand for the technology the startup is building.
‘About 20 years ago, a close friend of mine, a chief executive of one of the bigger UK public property companies appeared at his annual shareholder AGM in a black polo neck sweater, the “dress down“ Fridays trend imported from the US was just starting to take hold, a bold statement from the CEO of a public company at his AGM. Was this a sign of a new informality which was even infiltrating the hitherto impenetrable UK public companies? Maybe, but who would have guessed this informality would 10 years later enshrine even their physical working environments. We did, and we started planning for this almost the moment Lehman’s doors were shut firm.
Software companies increasingly talk about being “AI first” but separating hype from reality is a challenge. Which AI-first startups are actually scaling?
At Dawn we still consider AI/ML to be nascent and best understood as a tool to make existing great businesses better. What we have now is not true AI – no machine has worked out Newtonian Mechanics let alone Special Relativity – and we are investing accordingly. Where machine aided decision making is extremely useful is to enhance existing processes, so we are sticking with ‘customer first’ and then figuring out what software tools can help them
How we design, build and use workspace is changing. Fact. How developers go about this successfully is still very much up for debate 
The other Ravelin co-founders and I cut our teeth in Europe’s fastest growing company – the taxi app, Hailo. We worked at the forefront of Hailo’s fraud prevention and tackled international crime head-on as the business expanded around the world. 
As an entrepreneur, you’re a risk taker on a fast-paced journey. There are many things you will need to address along the way to give your start-up the best chance of success – including compliance and good corporate housekeeping. 
Whether we are delivery speculative or bespoke office space, the by-words on all tenants lips are ‘flexibility’ and ‘adaptability’. The inability to predict requirements more than a few years ahead – for good or bad – is generally the driver. 
