The latest edition of our newsletter is now out! If you didn’t sign up for it before, check out the online edition here. Among the topics we cover: Nuclear power / LP strategies / Solar panel chaos / Abortion / Telehealth medicine / Lux Recommends

University endowments are one of the key nexuses by which finance influences the future of science, tech, and the human condition, and what happens at endowments and other limited partners (LPs) matters deeply both for their clients but also the wider VC asset class. Washington University in St. Louis Chief Investment Officer Scott Wilson, who […]

We take for granted just how effortlessly consistent our daily life is. Our stoves burn with the swoosh of a knob, our stop signs (at least in the U.S.) are a stable hue of red, our wall outlets haven’t changed prongs in decades. The stairs, the shower head, the garage door — hardware devices that […]

While a huge amount of attention is being directed at crypto and media these days, one of the most important wild card investment trends of the 2020s is the coming expansion of biotech. Democratized science tools, improved research networking, and lab automation will revolutionize the practice of biotech, and that means there are huge opportunities […]

I’m traveling the next few weeks in Seoul, South Korea, and it’s always a delight to return here and see the technological ambition of this Asian Tiger’s entrepreneurs. South Korea has transformed into a major crypto innovation hub (arguably second only to the United States), a vanguard in climate tech and increasingly a content powerhouse […]

There’s a huge expansion in demand for compute power going on, with AI models, cryptocurrencies, autonomous vehicles and our social media algorithms all guzzling more chip cycles than ever before. But we’re also in the midst of a climate emergency, and chips are a major cause of energy demand. How do we reconcile the two? […]

“Redlines” in war are meant to be objective and unambiguous tests for a country to respond to another nation’s action. If one country uses chemical weapons in a conflict, that might violate the redline of another country and therefore force it to conduct military operations in response to reenforce the international laws and norms against […]

While the annals of history are rightly littered with the names of the inventors of wondrous technologies and breakthrough products, the true value of these innovations is only fully realized when they become widely accessible. Electricity, computers, genetic sequencing and thousands of other major advancements have only had their extensive effect on society after they […]

The dynamics of “watchwords” in the sweeping narratives of nation-states are peculiar and complex. “Democracy” and “equality” have a certain valence to Americans that’s unique, even to other democratic and equal places. This is to be expected after all: each community spins its own story, and thus the same political phrases can have radically different […]

In his new book, “The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the Future,” Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Sebastian Mallaby brings his erudite attention from the hedge fund world to venture capital, interviewing the industry’s leading players over the last 50 years to discover what is unique about this industry that “manufactures […]

web3 technologies have received prodigious funding the past two years as founders and VCs collectively search for the path to the next evolution of the internet. But how do we bridge the gap between the ubiquitous Web 2.0 world with what we see coming in web3? In this episode, Lux VC investor Grace Isford joins […]

Josh Wolfe and Danny Crichton talk about the influx of TV shows covering startup busts including WeCrashed, Super Pumped, and The Dropout; strategic ambiguity, game theory, and a bit of geopolitics; and what the case for optimism is in this world, including the difference between complacent optimism and conditional optimism. Finally, Danny observes the perilous […]

The funding of science is one of the most important leverage points for growth in the global economy. Yet, we’ve barely experimented with how science gets funded or tried to evolve financing models that were invented decades ago. Now, dozens of new organizations have been started to explore novel models for funding scientists to do […]

The history of economic progress is the study of tolerances. Social tolerance is the linchpin for closing a transaction: a buyer and a seller both have to understand, respect and trust one another in order to do business together. But that’s not the only form of tolerance involved in progress, for tolerances are also at […]

“If you build it, they will come.” It’s an aphorism that gets at one of the key dividing lines in venture capital and industrial policy today. First, there’s the ironic interpretation that has disseminated across Silicon Valley and startup investing the past decade. No one comes just because you’ve built something novel. Instead, it’s all […]