What I Learned This Past Week - 3.14.23
Twitter bank runs are now a thing
This Week’s Musings
The collapse of SVB and Signature Bank has pretty much been the dominant topic of discussion over the last 96 hours. What troubles me and that I haven’t been able to wrap my head around is the conflicting narratives of VCs fanning the flames of fear within portfolio companies at the end of last week and then the deluge of LI posts on Friday and over the weekend about how SVB was there for them when no one else was. Something isn’t right and this smells like bullshit.
Did you know SXSW was happening this week? Completely overshadowed by other events in the news.
Lastly, Meta announced another round of 10k layoffs. I guess this is not the last.
Informative Articles I Read
The machines are home: Will AI transform residential real estate tech? (TheRealDeal) - Interesting read that does a great job of painting the varying viewpoints of AI’s potential to radically alter all facets of real estate. No consensus among VCs, some of which are all in while others are staying far away.
Spain Emerges As Leading Crypto-Based Real Estate Sales Hub – Report (HeraldSheets) - I wouldn’t have predicted Spain to be the initial point of traction but maybe I need to go visit and check this out for myself.
Grant Cardone Shares His Perspectives On Tokenized Real Estate (Blockster) - I was really inclined not to share this article as the headline is pure clickbait. Ultimately, I decided to include this as the viable option pointed out in this article is Balcony who I generally believe is going about things correctly (and who I hope to record an episode of Proptech Espresso with this year).
Society Perfectly Fine With AI Replacing Real Estate Agents (The Betoota Advantage) - This article is hilarious! I can’t decide if this is meant to be a serious piece or if it’s an Australian version of The Onion.
Podcasts/Events/Webinars/etc. That I Listened To
None this week
Innovative Companies I Discovered
Milestones.AI - Home ownership platform.
MartelInvest - Tokenized real estate investing for as little as $50.
People You Need To Follow On LinkedIn
Stephen Chu - I got to meet Stephen this last week. Great guy and real estate web3 enthusiast. Check out his crypto twitter tweet about ETH Denver.
Web3/AI Announcements From Proptech Companies
Zeitview Expands Rooftop Inspection Capacity with AI-Enabled Software Platform and Aerial Thermal Analysis (FinancialPost) - Drone, AI/ML, and thermal inspections makes this platform super interesting. Amazing they are also operating in 70 countries.
Random But (un)Important Things I Stumbled On
Five Views of The Metaverse (Outland) - Five really interesting perspectives from people deeply involved in the metaverse. I was surprised at how much people seem to want to dance in the metaverse, almost like they believe the experience would be next level if their dancing options were better.
Risky Bet on Crypto and a Run on Deposits Tank Signature Bank (NY Times) - The full impact of SVB and Signature Bank’s collapse on proptech and related real estate businesses are yet to be fully understood, but you can bet it will be painful.
An AI Learned to Play Atari 6,000 Times Faster by Reading the Instructions (SingularityHub) - As a child of the Atari era (Pitfall was my favorite) it’s hard for me to pass up reading any article about this. Guess your parent’s advice of reading the instruction first does pay off, even for AI.
Metallica Acquires Furnace, One of America’s Largest Vinyl-Manufacturing Companies (Variety) - Nothing to do with real estate, but as a Metallica fan I couldn’t resist learning more. Metallica is incredibly business savvy, love that they are creating a vertically integrated music company.
