Here's what else lies ahead. Today, you'll learn about...
🖐️️ Losing a finger fighting for the vulnerable
🔔 How Philly botched 1918's Spanish Flu
💕 What it feels like to be loved (and loathed) like an influencer
🎰The Japanese gambling craze gaining traction in the US
😈 Startups that embody the "Seven Sins"
🇫🇷 The French soldier that ate his body weight in beef
🌊 Quibi's content wave, Doordash's choppy water, and a Kevin Costner flop
🤫 Exclusive CoS openings, Eric Schmidt's hiring push, and the biggest VC in Texas
🎉 A new winner takes the stage alongside an old favorite
🐰 Overheard
(Quotes from clever people)
"There was one case where one guy’s finger got bitten off from confronting somebody, so it can really be quite a dangerous game."
The internet has enabled all manner of crimes to be committed. It has also bred a new generation of vigilantes.
This week, TikTok took action to shutdown Pervert Productions, an account that lures pedophiles into meeting IRL before live-streaming that confrontation. The group is one of several adhoc communities that use social media platforms to snare child molesters and mete out justice. Last year The Guardian covered Scotland's "Wolf Pack," an anti-grooming group that has contributed to an "explosion" of cases using evidence gathered by activists. Between October 2017 and March 2019, Wolf Pack conducted 80 sting operations that led to an arrest or charge, with 25 resulting in a guilty plea or verdict. Indeed, a UK freedom of information request revealed that 22.5% of recorded offenses of meeting a child in person, after online grooming, were brought about by "pedophile hunters."
But despite operating with the best of intentions, groups like Pervert Productions and Wolf Pack nevertheless pose a risk. In many cases, these organizations are not well-versed in proper information gathering techniques, resulting in stings with inadmissable evidence. This can be particularly damaging for cases in which police are already working on an undercover investigation of their own. Beyond procedural jeopardy, these busts can physically endanger volunteers with targets reacting aggressively, leading to incidents like the one described above. And of course, there are cases of mistaken identity: a Yorkshire-based group was forced to apologize after live-streaming a confrontation with an innocent man.
On a week in which Apple updated its App Store guidelines to thwart publishers that allow users to circumvent law enforcement (usually by sharing the location of DUI checks), it's interesting to wonder what the future of vigilantism might look like.
🖼️ 1000 words
(Something to look at)
On September 18, 1918, Dr. Wilmer Krusen made a decision: the "Liberty Loan" parade would go ahead as planned.
The event was an opportunity to sell millions of dollars worth of war bonds, a needed boost as America reached the end of WWI. As the director of Philadelphia’s Public Health and Charities department, Krusen had been warned that the event risked spreading the new illness first reported by the Spanish press but he did not consider it a sufficient threat. The parade was a huge success, attracting 200K people; within 72 hours, every hospital bed in the city was full. By the end of the Spanish Flu's outbreak, between 50MM-100MM died, as much as 2.5x the number killed in WWI. As shown in the graph above, the virus meaningfully impacted life expectancy (in the US it dropped from 54 years to 47.2 between 1917 and 1918), in addition to causing a 5% global economic contraction.
Despite its name, the Spanish Flu likely originated in New York. This week, the city seemed to be consumed with the story, peppering small talk and coloring social interactions. On Thursday, someone refused to shake my hand. By Friday, ten others had done so. Across a dozen conversations, escape plans were shared, stories of bare Trader Joe shelves swapped. The question was ventured more than once: should the city follow Wuhan, and now Italy, in instituting a quarantine?
If we presume the lessons of 1918 apply to 2020, there may be good reason to do so. Geographies that undertook "social distancing" procedures (closing schools and churches, quarantining the infected) during the Spanish Flu outbreak saw death rates 50% lower than those that didn't. A more recent example can be found in the 2009 swine flu outbreak: the close of Texas schools reduced respiratory illnesses from 72% to 45%.
Perhaps current efforts will begin to move the needle. But if we continue to see an exponential increase in cases and deaths, more drastic measures will required. New York declaring a State of Emergency is a sign the virus is being taken seriously; it may still be short of what should be done.
😱 Signs of the apocalypse
(Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!)
Hard-headed
A TikTok challenge called the "Skull breaker" is unsurprisingly landing teens in the hospital. The prank involves three people standing in a row under the guise of learning a new dance move. When the person in the middle jumps, the other two kick the mark's legs out, leading to them falling backwards onto their head. The craze has resulted in broken wrists, concussions, seizures, and serious head trauma. Most recently, two New Jersey teens were charged third-degree aggravated assault for performing the prank on a classmate. More here
In Praise of Folly
Are you feeling insufficiently adored? Do your friends merely treat you kindly rather than addressing you with the godlike adulation you so richly deserve? As with everything else in 2020: there's an app for that. The creator of Chartbeat and Turntable.fm has turned his talents to Botnet, a social media platform in which every one of your posts are lavishly praised by hundreds of thousands of bots. If you're looking to keep your ego in check, you can add virtual trolls for just $0.99. After posting "Just ate some eggs," I got 56,216 likes and a sea of comments. User Gloriawhile said, "Thanks, I hate it," while Mellistorm2679 added "I'm sorry but this is an absolute waste of time." Fair point. More here
📡 Signal
(One exploding Google Trend)
Japanese gamers spend 88% more in-app than global players. A major contributor are "gacha games," inspired by toy dispensing machines called gachapon. This monetization method, which encourages players to pay in order to increase their opportunities to win special bonuses or unlock special players, has been popular in Japan since it crossed over into the digital realm in 2000s. Increasingly, it is a feature of Western games. Often referred to as "loot boxes," the mechanism has attracted the attention of regulators for its similarities to traditional gambling with users losing hundreds of thousands of dollars playing games like Path of Exile, along with mainstream franchises like FIFA, Mario Kart, and Overwatch. The House of Commons called for the mechanism to be age-gated, as has a committee in Australia; Belgium banned the practice outright.
While there is some evidence that gacha's influence is waning in Japan with giants like Gree, Inc. showing declining revenue and foreign publishers gaining a foothold in the market (75% of the top 100 app store games were made outside the country), its grip on the West may only have begun.
😈 Thesis: Shared Neuroses
(From Adrian -- a space he's keeping an eye on)
After a number of similar conversations with investors and operators in the consumer space, I thought I’d attempt to codify my thoughts on a “shared neuroses” framework for evaluating early-stage investments. It’s less of a sector-specific thesis and more of a template to ground my thinking.
I have no idea what the future holds. But, I’d bet good money that people will mirror the same behavioral patterns from the past. More specifically, people will respond emotionally in more or less the same manner to modern stimuli and incentive structures. These incentives, in the context of purchasing behavior and attention allocation, are neatly encapsulated in Sequoia’s now-infamous “deadly sins” thesis.
In the words of Sequoia’s Roelof Botha, “You don’t want to be the site that people should use. You want to be the site they can’t stop using.” This addictive aspect of a consumer product, according to Botha, must touch on at least one of the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, or pride.
The primal motivations at work here lead into my shared neuroses framework, a two-part extension of Sequoia’s thesis. First, a product must cause obsessive or addictive user behavior, often catalyzed or amplified by one or more deadly sins. Second, these neuroses must be shared by a number of individuals in the same target psychographic, thus encouraging tribal or cult-like behavior early in a company’s life cycle.
Notion, for example, brilliantly fits the mold of this framework for two reasons. First, its beautifully designed, intuitive interface is miles ahead of its closest competitor, in turn resulting in highly addictive behavior. Its elevated product is further amplified by pride, or holding oneself to an extreme state of superiority and high-esteem. Second, Notion’s power users retain shared values, or shared neuroses, around organization, excellence, and critically, ambition. Beyond Notion, we see others fitting this mold. Examples include Dipsea (Lust), Rally Road (Greed), Lucy (Gluttony), and Highsnobiety (Envy).
I’ve taken a liking to this framework due to its hyper-focus on customer-centricity and the behavioral psychology that underpins purchasing decisions within a target segment. By focusing solely on the user, and their cognitive-emotional responses, this shared neuroses template enables structured, thinking without over-intellectualizing early-stage consumer opportunities.
I’m particularly interested in tech-enabled consumer companies designed to amplify lust and pride. In the past 6 months alone, brands like Lover, Quinn, and Maude have all raised new funding. While this capital influx is indicative of heightened investor interest, I believe there remains significant room for growth in the global sexual wellness space, especially for new entrants at the nexus of content, commerce, and community.
🛣️ The Detour
(Oddly fascinating)
As a teenager, Tarrare was thrown out of his childhood home. His crime? An irrepressible appetite that succeeded in bankrupting his family. Born in 1772, that act of rejection is perhaps more understandable given that over a single day Tarrare was able to eat his own body weight in beef by the time he reached adolescence. Once out in the broader world, Tarrare made a living as the opener for a travelling charlatan. His act constituted him swallowing a basketful of apples whole, one after another, along with corks, stones and live animals.
When the War of the First Coalition broke out in 1792, starting a series of skirmishes between Europe's superpowers, Tarrare's unusual abilities were put to use. After his cravings were discovered by military officials (despite being granted quadruple rations, he would still scrounge for food), he was enlisted as a courier. His remit was to swallow a wooden box containing a message, carry it across enemy lines, excrete it, and deliver the sensistive information. French generals were reportedly so pleased with the test-run that Tarrare was subjected to that he was awarded a wheelbarrow full of bull's lungs weighing 30lbs. He devored it gleefully in a single sitting in front of the gathered crowd.
Tarrare's tale took a rather dark turn in later years as he sought medical attention for his condition. Modern researchers have speculated he may have suffered from extreme hyperthyrodism, or a damaged amygdala. The latter can induce polyphagia. Whatever the case, treatment courses of laudanum, tobacco pills, and bloodletting did nothing to minimize his symptoms. Grimly, Tarrare was cast out of hospital in which he was being studied after a 14-month-old child went missing. He was suspected to have eaten it. More on the ludicrous tale, here
🐒 Long tail
(Best of the rest)
Doordash's difficult sell
After confidentially filing documents to go public, the food delivery app's next challenge is winning Wall Street's trust. One Pitchbook analyst notes that he expects the company to take a "significant valuation haircut" in the public markets. Despite receiving a valuation of $12.9B last year, the company lost $450MM over the course of 2019 and faces regulatory headwinds: California has pushed for the reclassification of gig-workers, while New York has proposed limiting commissions to 10%. More here.
Quib-pro-quo
Short-form content startup Quibi has finagled another $750MM out of investors despite not launching a product. Led by Meg Whitman and Jeffrey Katzenberg, the app has now raised a total of $1.75B. After the round was announced, the company shared information on its first 50 (!) shows including Chrissy's Court, Punk'd with Chance the Rapper, Gaytime Show!, and Murder House Flip. Some of these actually look good? More here (including trailers)
Was Waterworld a documentary?
The Kevin Costner masterpiece portrays a landless planet. New revelations suggest that may have been the state of the globe 3B years ago as researchers from the University of Colorado and Iowa State University discovered chemical signatures suggesting a world without continents. The information may be critical in better understanding how life first formed. More here
Hit-and-miss
If you can't trust "The Sicilian Hitmen Network International" who can you? Studies undertaken by experts and law enforcement show that despite the abudance of sites advertising assination services over the dark web none have been connected to a death. Instead, these are scams successfully convincing buyers to part with thousands of dollars in Bitcoin for services including acid attacks, facial scar, and "blindning" that will never be rendered. In case you're curious, the average price for a hit is $18K in the UKand $11K in Australia, the same as in real life. More here
🔟 Jobs
(The jobs you need, and no more)
Just like Alexander Hamilton, to get ahead you need to be in the room where it happens. Onejob is a newsletter that surfaces under-the-radar, unpublished jobs at top startups, getting your resume into the room, and into the hands of the founder. We can thank them for three sub rosa postings this week, included below. If you're in the market (or testing the waters), subscribe here for more.
Head of Finance - Parade (NYC)
A buzzy brand with serious personality, Parade is bringing high-quality sustainable underwear to the world. Gotta love the bold and brash aesthetic in a market associated with a rather banal shade of pink. Apply here
Chief of Staff - Stensul (NYC)
The email marketing startup serves clients like HuffPo, YouTube and Lyft. You'll get the chance to work with a repeat founder backed by First Round and Lowercase. Apply here
Chief of Staff - Rowan (NYC)
A new piercing startup with big ambitions, Rowan brings registered nurses to your home to handle your next piece of ear art in addition to offering jewelry of their own. Perfect for those that spent their youth in the local Claire's. Apply here
VC Intern - Indicator Ventures (Boston)
The seed-stage firm focuses on backing companies that leverage "digital efficiences" to generate time and cost savings. Apply here
VC Associate - S3 Ventures (Austin)
Billing itself as the "largest VC fund focused on Texas" S3 is backed by a multi-billion dollar family. Interestingly, the JD explicitly notes that this position will not include cold calling entrepreneurs for dealflow. Apply here
VC Associate - Innovation Endeavors (SF)
The venture firm founded by Eric Schmidt is looking for someone whose "superpower is execution." If that's you, shoot your shot and join the fund behind Freenome, Uber, Sofi, and others. Apply here
Chief of Staff - Workstream (SF)
In the war for talent, everyone is looking to add to their arsenal. Workstream aspires to be a company's secret weapon, shortening the time to hire for gig workers. The HR platform has been backed by a diverse set of luminaries including backpfeifengesicht owner Peter Thiel, QB legend Joe Montana, and "The Beard" himself, James Harden. Apply here
Corporate Development Manager - Facebook (SF)
If you believe Facebook's true mission is to "give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together," I admire your optimism; let's hope your right. At the very least, you should have plenty of capital to deploy. Apply here.
VC Intern - Kapor Capital (SF)
A genuinely socially-minded fund with a strong track record, Kapor's internship connects you a host company. Make sure to apply by March 11th to be considered. Apply here
VC Intern - Anthos Capital (LA)
This West Coast firm likes to stay under-the-radar. But with $1B under management and investments like GoPuff and Honey, that might not be possible for much longer. Looks like a good opportunity to learn from partners with real operating experience. Apply here
🧩 Puzzler
(A question, conundrum, or riddle to mull over)
“Where can you finish a book, and yet not finish a sentence?”
Kaitlyn R got awfully close to providing the answer to last week's riddle. She built on that momentum in record time this week, delivering the right answer: L-I-V-E/E-V-I-L. Nicely done. Credit is also due to perennial puzzler powerhouse Nick T for answering correctly, along with Bill M for a creative, if not quite correct, submission.
Wishing you all a lovely Sunday. 💙