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London, England

Work in progress

Walks (with Google Maps Links)

“My London Walks” links

  1. Westminster
  2. St James’s
  3. Holborn to the Old Bailey
  4. Paddington to Camden Market
  5. City of London 1
  6. City of London 2
  7. Farringdon to Clerkenwell
  8. Clerkenwell to Islington
  9. Tower Hill to Wapping
  10. Wapping to Canary Wharf
  11. East End Sunday markets
  12. Charing Cross to St Paul’s
  13. Isle of Dogs
  14. Soho
  15. Covent Garden
  16. King’s Cross and St Pancras

Other Information

Thoughts on “Of Fragments and Segments” by Heidi Czerwiec 

I was ambivalent about this piece. It made me think, but much of the discussion seemed toassume that very personal metaphoric uses of terms like “fragment” and “segment” had some kind of inter-personal validity, …which I doubt they had. But still, it was interesting to think about how (or whether) you break an essay into pieces, and what sort of work that separation does.

Here is the original essay: https://hippocampusmagazine.com/2022/04/craft-of-fragments-and-segments-by-heidi-czerwiec/

Some thoughts:

  • Fragments are natural and respect the object; segmentation/cutting imposes an external / artificial agenda.
    First, the reading of “fragment” as “to break” seems etymologically valid, but the notion that breaking (in fragments) is somehow more violent the cutting (as in segment) is, at least on a physical level, dubious.
    When things break – think about minerals, but it can apply to any material object – they break in accordance with their structures. Often this is because material objects have an intrinsic structure, that includes planes of ‘weakness’ along which they will fracture. When a material object “breaks,” it breaks in the most ‘efficient’ way — it uses the minimal energy to break, and, when it breaks, it is releasing tension that is distorting the structure of the object. In contrast, cutting ignores internal structure, and imposes an external agenda on what is being done. Breaking is true to the structure of the object being broken; cutting ignores that structure, although in some cases, surgery for example, the surgeon may take that into account. 
  • It feels to me like much of the essay is wallowing in metaphor, or at least treating personal metaphors as though they have some kind of agreed-upon interpersonal validity. I’m not convinced that authors who talk about segmentation really have distinct meanings in mind relative to those who talk about fragmentation.
  • The final paragraph seems on the mark to me, but I’m not sure it really follows from the previous material: 

It appears that the more white space – the less “whole” the text appears, the more fragmented, the more visible the breakage – the more charged that space becomes for the reader. That also means more work on the part of the reader. Ultimately, it doesn’t seem to matter whether the reader considers the pieces segments or fragments.

  • The crux of the issue: To me, the crux of the issue is ‘what work does the white space do?’ 
    • Help the reader understand the temporal and topical structure of the text, understanding that the white space is parsing the essay into chunks of some sort?
    • Give the reader time – a beat or two – to assimilate what has been said
    • Signal the reader that it is time to pause and draw meaning from what has been said – that if the dots have not been connected it is now the reader’s turn?
    • Save the author from having to craft an explicit transition from one fragment to the next?
  • Interpretation of Fragments. Mosaics, and collages, and cubist and pointillistic paintings, work because the individual elements can be perceived as wholes, and simultaneously apprehended in parallel to form a larger pattern. Segments of text don’t work this way – interpretation is serial and plays out over cognitively meaningful lengths of time… Re-membering, and re-calling are important, as is the author’s provision of signposts that will help the reader…

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The Power Law: Venture Capital &…, Sebastian Mallaby

May 2024

I did not do a thorough reading of this book due to other commitments; the parts I have read are quite good, and so I am a bit sorry about that. Athough on the other hand this is not aligned with my current projects/interests, so I will probably let it go.

Here are the notes I have:

Precis

The book explores venture capital and its impact on the technology sector and the broader economy – looks at its beginnings in the mid-20th century and follows it up to the present day. Its theme is that VC depends on the power law, in which a small proportion of investments result in a few huge wins  that more than compensate for all the other losses. Many big risks, a few huge rewards.

Examples covered in the book include:Fairchild; Genentech; Apple; Google; Amazon; Ebay; Twitter; Uber

Some points

  • Power law is fundamental to the VC model
  • VC relies on robust networks  where entrepreneurs, investors, and other stakeholders collaborate and share knowledge.
  • The decision-making processes and intuition of venture capitalists is often based on individual judgment rather than formal metrics or models
  • VC allows enterprises to rapidly scale, something that is crucial when success relies on the network effect

VC Strategies

  • Sector Specialization  (e.g. in technology, biotech, or green energy) allows development of deep expertise.
  • Stage Specialization  (e.g., in seed stage, early stage, or growth stage).
  • Geographic specialization to leverage regional expertise and networks.
  • Ecosystem Creation: Investing that aims to create and control a dystem of interrelated businesses.
  • Critical Factors: Rapidly growing markets, game-changing solutions, proprietary or other locked-in advantages, business models that scale (network effect)
  • Control: Preferred returns/liquidation; board representation; anti-dilution provisions; drag-along and tag-along exit provisions.
  • Syndication via partnering with other VC firms to spread the risk and draw on different areas of expertise.

Pro-VC Government Policies

Governments are not typically very effective at stimulating VC type investment, but here are some policies that Mallaby favors:

  • Tax breaks (esp. via limited partnerships) work better than subsidies
  • Tax breaks for investors should be coupled with incentives for entrepreneurs (e.g. non-voting stock options)
  • Invest in scientific education and research
  • Think globally – e.g., visas for foreign scientists/entrepreneurs; support foreign stock exchange listing; etc.

Importance of Randomness vs. expertise in VC investing

  • Path dependency is not that great; many VC firms that have done well for a while, and then faded
  • Examples where skill/new perspectives obviously critical to success: KP and Genentech and Tandem; late stage approach; Y-combinator

My Questions for our Visiting VC

  • How often do funded ventures radically (significantly) shift course? Is the non-financial value of VC assistance in fine-tuning strategies to suit the business and regulatory envirionment?
  • How often is an effort made to create an ecosystem of businesses, rather than just one
  • What are some really, in hindsight, significant mistakes you’ve made? What is the smartest mistake you’ve made (in the sense that with all you knew it should have been the right call, but wasn’t). And what was the dumbest mistake you made (i.e. that you can’t believe you made that decision, in hindsight), and why did you make it.