x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

Riskgaming

A podcast by venture capital firm Lux Capital on the opportunities and risks of science, technology, finance and the human condition. Hosted by Danny Crichton from our New York City studios.

technology

All Episodes

00:20:43

Vaporware skepticism

Riskgaming ·

2022/06/25

"Where marginal stupidity is about “how there is a turning point where further information or complexity can befuddle us and simply raise costs without any concomitant value,” what I am seeing in hard science investing is an outsourcing of thought, a reliance on the splashy marketing one-pager instead of the agonizingly long technical research with the diligence to match. None of this bodes well for many of the new VC entrants who have suddenly become enamored by the capital return potential of

en

00:22:11

Lazy tech analogies

Riskgaming ·

2022/06/18

"The world is incredibly complicated, and humans necessarily use heuristics and analogies to process that complexity into simpler forms. These mental shortcuts are never perfect, but they should broadly summarize the complexity they represent while affording their user a sense of their limitations. In that vein, I want to call attention to two lazy tech analogies that I’ve seen lately as examples of the kind of impoverished analogical thinking that the industry needs to actively avoid." - Danny

en

00:16:16

Alternate Histories and GPT-3

Riskgaming ·

2022/06/17

"GPT-3 was trained on is so large that the model contains a certain fraction of the actual complexity of the world. But how much is actually inside these models, implicitly embedded within these neural networks? I decided to test this and see if I could examine the GPT-3 model of the world through the use of counterfactuals. Specifically, I wanted to see if GPT-3 could productively unspool histories of the world if things were slightly different, such as if the outcome of a war were different or a

en

00:12:44

Marginal Stupidity

Riskgaming ·

2022/06/14

"One of the most important cognitive tradeoffs we make is how to process information, and perhaps more specifically, the deluge of information that bombards us every day. A study out of UCSD in 2009 estimated that Americans read or hear more than 100,000 words a day — an increase of nearly 350% over the prior three decades (and that was before Slack and Substack!) It would seem logical that more information is always better for decision-making, both for individuals and for societies. Yet, that’s

en

00:06:54

The ESG Mirage

Riskgaming ·

2022/06/11

"The activities of an extremely complicated phenomenon like a multi-national corporation cannot be reduced to five-star ratings, particularly on a definition as squishy as “Environmental, Social, and Governance.” Rather than trying to strengthen definitions or improve quantification, the industry needs to come to terms with a more basic reality: the mission is impossible, and its failure began before it even started. With this much moolah at stake, the world deserves better." - Danny Crichton Lux

en

00:18:23

Jonathan Haidt on American structural stupidity and...

Riskgaming ·

2022/06/04

Speech and the right to it has become deeply contested across America in the 21st Century. What is free speech, what are its limits, and what norms should apply to both give everyone a chance to speak while also respecting the needs of a democratic society to function? Investigating these and other critical questions has been Jonathan Haidt, professor of social psychology at NYU’s Stern School of Business and the author most recently of “The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad

en

00:26:30

Jonathan Haidt on how tech can change social media...

Riskgaming ·

2022/06/04

In part one of this interview, Jonathan Haidt described his recent article in The Atlantic on America’s structural stupidity and why the classical metaphor of the Tower of Babel describes the current political and social environment for Americans.In this second and final part, Josh Wolfe and Danny Crichton discuss with Haidt the potential directions that the tech industry can take to ameliorate the worst aspects of our current toxic social media environment. We’ll also discuss the mental health of

en

00:29:44

Speculative fiction is a prism to understand people

Riskgaming ·

2022/05/26

Speculative fiction is a long-running but increasingly popular genre of science fiction that uses a variety of imaginative techniques to envision alternatives to our present and coming society. One of its craftsmen is Eliot Peper, a novelist whose tenth book, Reap3r, was just released. Reap3r follows a diverse cast including a quantum computer scientist, a virologist, a podcaster, a VC, and an assassin as they unlock a mystery key to the whole plot. Peper along with host Danny Crichton talk about

en

00:29:51

Will Malthus or human ingenuity win out in these...

Riskgaming ·

2022/05/21

It’s been another crazy week of financial news, but how do all these trends add up? This week, Danny Crichton and Josh Wolfe talk about South Korea’s burgeoning desire for nuclear weapons, some themes from the latest Lux quarterly letter and how a 1980s experimental film inspired its theme of “entropic apex,” how Gen Z and others will respond to actions by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates and corporations to raise prices, some commentary on Twitter and Elon Musk and finally, a debate on

en

00:30:23

If you’re not solving for pain, then what the hell...

Riskgaming ·

2022/05/17

Tony Fadell is the consummate Silicon Valley builder, having conceived, designed and executed such iconic products as the Apple iPod and iPhone as well as the Nest thermostat. He’s now looking to give back to the community that has given him so much with his new book Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making, which just came out from Harper Business. He joins Lux's Danny Crichton and Peter Hébert to talk about the time he walked out of a position just two weeks on the job, how the

en

00:18:05

Risk, Bias and Decision Making: Pre-mortems

Riskgaming ·

2022/05/14

Recently at Lux in New York City, Josh Wolfe invited three celebrated decision and risk specialists for a lunch to discuss the latest academic research and empirical insights from the world of psychology and decision sciences. Our lunch included Daniel Kahneman, who won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on decision sciences. His book Thinking Fast and Slow has been a major bestseller and summarizes much of his work in the field. We also had Annie Duke, a World Series of Poker champion

en

00:09:19

Risk, Bias and Decision Making: People never change...

Riskgaming ·

2022/05/14

Recently at Lux in New York City, Josh Wolfe invited three celebrated decision and risk specialists for a lunch to discuss the latest academic research and empirical insights from the world of psychology and decision sciences. Our lunch included Danny Kahneman, who won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on decision sciences. His book Thinking Fast and Slow has been a major bestseller and summarizes much of his work in the field. We also had Annie Duke, a World Series of Poker champion

en

00:21:58

Risk, Bias and Decision Making: Defying the odds

Riskgaming ·

2022/05/14

Recently at Lux in New York City, Josh Wolfe invited three celebrated decision and risk specialists for a lunch to discuss the latest academic research and empirical insights from the world of psychology and decision sciences. Our lunch included Danny Kahneman, who won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on decision sciences. His book Thinking Fast and Slow has been a major bestseller and summarizes much of his work in the field. We also had Annie Duke, a World Series of Poker champion

en

00:06:49

Risk, Bias and Decision Making: Hot hands

Riskgaming ·

2022/05/14

Recently at Lux in New York City, Josh Wolfe invited three celebrated decision and risk specialists for a lunch to discuss the latest academic research and empirical insights from the world of psychology and decision sciences. Our lunch included Danny Kahneman, who won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on decision sciences. His book Thinking Fast and Slow has been a major bestseller and summarizes much of his work in the field. We also had Annie Duke, a World Series of Poker champion

en

00:34:03

Shredding the endowment investing playbook w/Scott...

Riskgaming ·

2022/05/07

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 drove the university’s record-breaking 65% return last year and is also a Lux LP, joins the podcast to discuss how he redeemed $3.6 billion in assets his

en

00:15:09

The future of biotech is moving from bench to beach

Riskgaming ·

2022/04/30

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 for intrepid founders. But there’s a catch: biotech stock performance has been abysmal the past year, and many investors are walking away from the

en

00:17:30

Chip demand and the future of the climate with Mythic...

Riskgaming ·

2022/04/23

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? Joining me to talk about this as well as the future of the semiconductor industry, the CHIPS act, and other national industrial policies is Lux’s Shahin Farshchi and Mythic AI CEO

en

00:14:34

Redlines for diplomacy and business with former...

Riskgaming ·

2022/04/16

“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 reinforce the international laws and norms against the use of such weapons. Redlines though are often ambiguous, used poorly, and their deterrence effect is often diminished by a lack of credibility. How should

en

00:26:10

The VC Power Law with CFR senior fellow Sebastian...

Riskgaming ·

2022/04/09

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 courage.” In this episode, Mallaby, Josh Wolfe and Danny Crichton talk about the structural and cultural differences between hedge funds and VC firms, the

en

00:12:57

Is web3 really just looking for Web 2.5?

Riskgaming ·

2022/04/05

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 host Danny Crichton to discuss the key infrastructure investments in what she is dubbing “web2.5,” the crypto developer stack, and what’s next for crypto in 2022.

en

184 results

Similar Podcasts

Lead With AI

Tamara Nall

Linux in the Ham Shack

Black Sparrow Media

Data Engineering Podcast

Tobias Macey

Eye On A.I.

Craig S. Smith

Reflections

Livewire Labs