Annotated Tuesday links
Prototype fund, attracting exceptional talent, Europe is a power bloc in the making, general managers for big problems, the beauty of concrete, living life to its fullest, how people dance wrong
Andreas Klinger - the guy behind EU, inc - launched a European fund for early stage startups in robotics, automation and manufacturing. “We sell out our best tech to China. We export our best founders & most of our investment money to the US. That's insanity.” They also have a nice youtube channel which covers exceptional European hardware startups.
How to attract exceptional talent. “When immigration works, it works for Britain. The Huguenots who fled persecution helped make London a city of commerce and craft. German miners, invited by Tudor monarchs, seeded early industrial expertise. Engineers such as Marc Isambard Brunel built the nation’s infrastructure. Polish and Czech airmen defended British skies, while immigrant scientists drove breakthroughs in radar, codebreaking, and modern physics [..] when voters can clearly see how a person contributes to the country’s security and prosperity, support for welcoming that talent is consistently high.” This was written by Julia Willemyns specifically for Britain. But the immigration systems of other European countries should also be improved. Europe is still a unique place to work and live and raise a family, full of culture and beauty and stability freedom and prosperity. Working at Farmless I witnessed firsthand how young talented & motivated people from all over the world desperately want to move here. Let’s scoop up that talent now that the US is closing its borders. What I’d like to see is a bidding war for talent between European countries, or a European operation Paperclip.
Very much related: Europe is a power bloc in the making (Dutch). Excellent op-ed by Luuk van Middelaar. “We are a continent of small states with ancient landscapes, cities, languages and cultures that for five centuries have also embraced innovation, science and modernization – thanks to doubt, debate and dissent.” To his point: why isn’t Dutch newspaper NRC publishing its op-eds in English? How else are we going to get a European space for discussion going? Hat tip Jochem Wieringa
There should be “general managers” for more of the world’s important problems. I like this fresh approach to making philanthropy more ambitious. The key challenge here is to pick exactly the right problem to work on.
The beauty of concrete. “In the first half of the twentieth century, Western artistic culture was transformed by a complex family of movements that we call modernism, a trend that extends far beyond architecture into the literature of Joyce and Pound, the painting of Picasso and Matisse, and the music of Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Between the 1920s and the 1950s, modernist approaches to architecture were adopted for virtually all public buildings and many private ones. Most architectural modernists mistrusted ornament and largely excluded it from their designs. The immense and sophisticated industries that had served the architectural aspirations of the nineteenth century withered in full flower.” Architects could have designed beautiful buildings with modern materials such as concrete, but chose not to. The good news here is that this trend can be reversed with technology and a cultural vibe shift away from modernism. (I strongly suspect that a successful progress movement must embrace traditional beauty and local traditions in architecture.)
Jim Dethmer on the four pillars of integrity, improving relationships and living life to its fullest. There’s a high density of wisdom in this two hour podcast. I’m learning so much from this — I’m halfway through listening it for the second time. Hat tip Liza Rubinstein Malamud.