What's coming up next week on Caffeine
Plus: The strangest thing I will ever recommend and Bill Gates shuttering foundation far ahead of schedule.
Good morning Caffeinators,
Read on to take a sneak peek at what’s coming from Caffeine in the next week for our subscribers, your usual Weekend Fuel recommendation and a reflection on Bill Gates giving away his billions much sooner than anticipated.
The response to our first in person Caffeine event, The Risk-Reward Equation: How to Innovate Without Derailing Your Startup, has been incredible so far and tickets are going fast so if you want to secure your spot you really need to get in there now.
Remember, it’s free for you Caffeinators using the code CAFFEINEFRIENDS. Just make sure you hit APPLY with promo code. Get your ticket here.
And if you’ve got a story, press release, interview to pitch or just want to tell me I’m wrong about something - send it over to finn@caffeinedaily.co
If you’re interested in working with Caffeine as a partner, flick Georgia an email on: georgia@caffeinedaily.co
Have a great weekend, look after each other and we’ll see you next week.
Finn and the CAFFEINE team
Coming up on Caffeine:
Serge Van Dam is back with some more scribbles from the frontline: Our resident Scribbler, columnist and podcast co-host Serge Van Dam is back with another cracker column on Wednesday for our paid subscribers but here’s a little preview for all subs:
TLDR: If you are not at least a little obsessed; you’re not in a startup. You are merely in a business.
The Fine Line
With the support of our friends at Caffeine Daily, Troy Hammond and I host a podcast / show; Startup Theatre (often referred to as “The World’s Biggest Podcast”). We recently interviewed the co-founder of Xero, Hamish Edwards. What came through loud and clear in our conversation with him (which you can watch / listen to here) is the role of obsessive behaviour when it comes to starting, building and scaling a company.
The first startup to properly suck me in was a mobile banking company called M-Com I was involved in. I really would wake up in the middle of the night thinking about how to win a deal (or panicking that I had lost one). I really did have product-related eureka moments in the bathroom, even though I was neither a founder nor responsible for the product. And I certainly missed more than a handful of conversations I was having with friends or family because I was obsessing about our company and its ambitions. I am not saying it was honourable conduct, but I think it was necessary. And bizarrely, I miss the feeling!
Paid subs can read the rest on Wednesday next week
Startup spotlight on Aspiring Materials: Startups are all about meeting a need and solving a problem and I can’t picture a greater need than the surging need for critical minerals to power our green transition or a greater problem than climate change.
At Aspiring Materials, the team is doing some incredible work in decarbonising material supply chains while creating high value products at the same time. I recently caught up with Megan Danczyk, Lead Chemical Process Engineer to hear more about the transformative potential of their technology. Check that one on Tuesday next week
Part two of our conversation with Bizzy CEO and Insights Driven PM Corinna Stukan: People seemed to enjoy my last conversation with Corinna Stukan, founder of Insights Driven PM and current CEO of new fintech startup, Bizzy and I really enjoyed it as well. So much so that we’re getting two piece of content out of it, this second column focused on the bigger picture of how you should think about measuring the metrics that matter at your startup. Check that out on Thursday (potentially Friday, things are a little in flux) next week.
Here’s what’s on our radar. Hit us with your own recommendations.
The Rehearsal Season 2: Cringe comedy is very much the vegemite of content - you either love it or you hate it. Recommending things like Curb your Enthusiasm is always a gamble depending entirely on how much social schadenfreude your audience enjoys.
Nathan Fielder’s comedy goes beyond cringe comedy into something else, it’s almost this new genre of ‘social anxiety horror’. Watching the Rehearsal Season 2, where Fielder goes to truly, truly insane lengths in spending HBOs money on intricate recreations of moments in peoples lives, literally had me hiding behind the couch at one point.
The latest episode might be one of the funniest but most insane things I’ve ever seen. All delivered in perfect, punishing deadpan.
Watch it now on Neon
Bill Gates plans to give away almost his entire fortune in the next two decades: Perhaps the world’s most influential founder is giving away his immense wealth sooner than anticipated. He has already pledged 99% of his wealth to the charitable Bill Gates Foundation but he is now directing it to shut down by 2045 after exhausting its coffers.
That means it will have to spend roughly $9b a year which is a pretty radical burn rate for a good cause. The move seems conveniently timed to fill some of the void left by the Unites States’ recent slashing of international aid and research budgets. The foundation was set to wind down 20 years after the founders death and since he shows no signs of slowing down, this is a radical step up in its timeline.
The foundation has already given away approximately $100b across its history, championing causes related to health equity, vaccine distribution and climate science.
How fun for Gates to have arguably done the most charitable work in history and still have to wake up each day to a sizeable portion of the internet shouting at him to stop putting microchips in kids and trying to take over the world.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Want to get in touch with a news tip, bit of feedback or just to chat? Email hello@caffeinedaily.co. Look after yourselves this weekend and we’ll see you Monday.