David Knight

The NTIA/Verisign Cooperative Agreement for .Com impacts the fundamental workings of the Internet infrastructure and US digital sovereignty. This article in Circle ID from last week sums up the problems of the Internet Plumbing Monopolies. Is Verisign a Monopoly? Does It Matter? https://lnkd.in/eQ2UrGu4 Here is my response to the article: Your arguments regarding the price of .com are logical; however, the issue of Verisign’s monopoly extends beyond just .com pricing. It also concerns the monopoly power that Verisign holds within the DNS ecosystem, a power given it through the NTIA Cooperative Agreement and Amendment 35 without any US public or Congressional input or oversight. This monopoly power has significant implications for undermining ICANN’s “multi-stakeholder” process. We have seen this in several instances, such as Verisign’s failure to implement a “Thick WHOIS,” despite being an agreed-upon consensus “multi-stakeholder” policy of ICANN back in 2016 (and now required as part of NIS2). Furthermore, Verisign has collaborated with other “contracted parties” to narrow the definition of DNS Abuse by excluding CSAM and IP violations even though the US and EU DNS Abuse definitions include both. Even more troubling is that Verisign has been colluding with ICANN to secure its policy objectives that are counter to the protection of US cybersecurity and consumer/child protection. This has occurred through bilateral contract negotiations - such as those involving .com price increases, DNS Abuse definition, and blocking efforts to ensure an open, accurate, and accessible WHOIS - and ICANN policies involving NIS2 and the US cybersecurity reporting law (CISA). #versign #icann #whois #darkwhois #internetplumbingmonopolies #nationalsecurity #cybersecurity  

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Why Buying Your First Business is the hardest & Financing The Fear is Being seen as too risky by lenders and investors. The Solution: Prepare a solid business plan with detailed financial projections. Work with a financial advisor to enhance your credibility. Consider alternative financing options like SBA loans or seller financing.

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Exciting to see startups aiming to use AI to discover chemicals, materials, drugs, etc. Semi companies have taken notice: AMD is investing in and Cadence is acquiring them. Semi/EDA companies have broken out by becoming critical path, whether it’s through critical software, packaging, IP, design kits from foundries, or user communities. Aside from just making it easy to make new materials, these “AI for making X” companies also need to articulate a vision as to how they can establish monopolistic positions in their industries.

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I find it hard to believe that with millions of EVs entering the market and the proliferation of AI compute that PGE is actually going to have excess capacity in 2040 without any additional generation from 3rd parties. I am also curious if there are enough transmission lines and if PGE views that as someone else’s problem. Maybe they are planning on AI and ACTUAL figuring it all out! https://lnkd.in/gybsMmaw

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This is just incredible. Neal Ghosh's demonstration of how #VentureIQ takes deeply technical and complicated content across a range of industrial use cases and ages/stages through an AI-generated conversational podcast (a la #notebookLM) is really mind-blowing. Check out his post, below, and if you haven't seen VentureIQ, yet, let's get you set up to learn more. You can visit VentureIQ.ai or DM any of us over here to book a demo!

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Friends, Q2 was a quarter of progress and learning for us at HawkTower, where we invest in early-stage startups applying breakthrough computing technologies to maximize California's natural resource markets. Our focus is on technology-enabled interventions (e.g., AI-enabled geospatial radars for lithium-ion batteries in the waste stream) for critical, market-level imperatives (e.g., disaster prevention) that can drive rapid commercial adoption (e.g., placed on every recycling truck in the world). Our current investment priorities are: - Agricultural productivity and efficiency - Biomanufacturing - Labor and mobility automation - Waste stream optimization and decarbonization - Disaster prevention and management Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve been up to: Milestones and Investments: - In late April, we officially launched our fund, filing with the SEC. Yay. - By June, we completed our first fund close ahead of schedule, with backing from family offices, foundations, high-net-worth individuals, and organizations aligned with California's future. - Our portfolio now includes three early-stage investments (Farm-ng, Agriful Software, and Nexstera Tech). Strategic Partnerships: - We believe that startups operating closer to their customers and resources, especially in agriculture and biomanufacturing, have a strategic advantage. For instance, the Salinas Valley, a major agricultural hub, is less than an hour from Silicon Valley and serves as a center of thought leadership in the convergence of agriculture and AI (from Western Growers, Taylor Farms, and others). - Similarly, the North San Joaquin Valley is emerging as a biotech and agtech innovation hub, and we are proud to support BEAM Circular, a startup hub for the circular bioeconomy. Key Relationships: - Karen Warner, CEO of BEAM Circular, joined HawkTower as a strategic advisor. - Jackie Cruz, Ed. D. Cruz, Hartnell College’s VP of Advancement, advises on Salinas Valley and workforce development. - Ben Palone from Western Growers, with his technical background in agriculture, became a trusted advisor. - Matthew Hoffman from Driscoll's Global R&D team provides insights on global agriculture, product positioning, and investment strategy. - We collaborated with Monterey Bay DART for workforce development and automation in agtech. - Dominic Milano and the Milano Technical Group from Merced collaborated on key initiatives and advised us on investments. - HawkTower is participating in Santa Cruz Works's accelerator cohort as a mentor and advisor. Thank you Doug Erickson. - We published an overview of entrepreneurship across the UC system with input from across the University of California system. Moving into the fall, we remain deeply committed to supporting founders shaping California's future natural resource markets. Stay tuned and be in touch! : ) Db

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Interesting piece from Marc Andreessen on how startups are not getting the regulatory support they need to sustain America's technological leadership. "Regulatory agencies have been green lit to use brute force investigations, prosecutions, intimidation, and threats to hobble new industries, such as Blockchain. Regulatory agencies are being green lit in real time to do the same to Artificial Intelligence." While many investors themselves (both in the US and Europe) are worried how AI will change our lives, our jobs and social interactions, the top VC opinion leader thinks regulation is already too restrictive. #techstartups #techleadership #strategicgrowth

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🚨Boom! 8090 Industries portfolio company Armada led by Dan Wright and Jon Runyan lands another $40M led by Microsoft marking $100M raised to date after announcing its Series A and coming out of stealth in 2023 just 7 months ago and shares new customer partnerships with Haliburton and Skydio. 🌪 “Extreme situations like hurricanes reinforce the need for “edge” computing, the practice of processing data locally rather than sending it back to the cloud. “Lots of oil and gas companies are really very concerned about these types of disasters. You can’t have any latency. You have to be able to respond in real time.” Dan Wright, cofounder and CEO of Armada, While disaster response is the obvious application, Armada’s edge technology also has a big role to play in all sorts of remote environments where uninterrupted data access is critical. Think real-time safety monitoring at high-risk worksites, real-time emissions tracking for oil rigs, and automated operations for mines. In regards to the newly inked partnership with Microsoft: It’s a natural fit, says Pradeep Nair Armada’s founding CTO and a 10-year veteran of Microsoft’s Azure business. “If you look at all of these customers we’re hitting—oil, gas, and mining—these guys are legacy, traditional customers and Microsoft is their biggest vendor,” he says. The partnership with Microsoft “opens up the whole pipeline, without us needing to go through the whole procurement process.” Cc Kerem Ozmen Garuth A. Wes Mendenhall Filip Vurdelja Haluk Sabanci Dincer Grant Brown Ishan Meswani Andrew Irwin Shilpa Patel

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Part of the DPI squeeze visualized: Fewer tech IPOs in 2022-2024 than during both the post dot-com bubble (2001-2002) and the financial crisis (2008-2009). Various reasons for this - more private capital, prohibitive regulations, too lofty valuations, etc. - but the end result is fewer exits via public markets. The IPO window is still pretty closed. 🪟 via Coatue.

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breaking news: VC is ~still~ the wild, wild west and the lack of standards disproportionately hurts newer, smaller entrants. sure, you got access to spaceX... but at what cost? great article from The Information about layered SPVs and what to look out for if you're getting involved in these types of deals. Sydecar has seen a 4x increase in multi-layered SPVs over the past two years, and recently published our own article on this emerging trend (linked in the comments) thanks for the mention, Sri Muppidi!

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The emergence of a large number of small venture funds may indicate that the venture industry is transitioning to a new stage of development. I believe this is an encouraging signal for micro-startups: they are more likely to catch the attention of these micro-funds, increasing their chances of securing early-stage funding and support.

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3D printing is having a breakout moment, turning its long held promise into a reality that is arriving at pace and at scale. Over the next 5 years: - Consumers will expect customized products at scale - Computers will surpass human creativity and skill in product design - New infrastructure is needed to protect IP if anything can be printed anywhere  - Global supply chains will be meaningfully dismantled as products get printed at their point of sale I sat down with Philip DeSimone, Co-founder of Carbon, the most advanced 3D printing company already operating at scale serving customers in 17 countries ranging from Adidas to Ford. With over 300 patents filed, Carbon has raised $680M from the likes of Sequoia, Temasek, and Google. Check out 5YF Episode #14: 3D printing breakthroughs, AI designed products, mass customization, spare body parts, dismantling global trade, IP piracy, and the future of production w/ Carbon Co-founder Philip DeSimone https://pod.fo/e/234185 #3Dprinting

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Excited for DCVC portfolio co Alta Resource Technologies to emerge from stealth! The design space of biology is many orders of magnitude larger than inorganic chemistry, and Alta uses it to massively reduce the cost of extracting rare earth metals. https://lnkd.in/g_q5UwRF

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Some unicorns and late-stage VC-backed companies restrict their employees from selling their stock, often at the request of their boards of directors. Not this one. Andrew Feldman and his executive team at Cerebras Systems (a high-flying AI chip startup mounting a challenge to the likes of NVIDIA and Groq) have been willing to recognize the blood, sweat and tears that employees with vested options have put into building this impressive business, by allowing them to sell their shares in the private market. This is not just great news for current and former Cerebras employees but also for the company and its investors! Why? Liquidity typically leads to higher stock pricing, making it more attractive to investors. How so? The short answer is that when a stock is more liquid, its riskiness declines. When risk goes down, so does the discount rate (the cost of capital) that investors use to price the asset. When the discount rate goes down, all else equal, the price should go up! This enhanced liquidity and pricing can help a company with fundraising valuations, consolidating the cap table before an IPO, and bridging the valuation gap between an illiquid private market and a very liquid public market. Congratulations to Andrew and the Cerebras team for delivering on your promise to your employees and investors by allowing a liquid market for your stock. And bravo to your board members (which, according to PitchBook include Eric Vishria of Benchmark , Brad Gerstner of Altimeter, Steve Vassallo of Foundation Capital, Lior Susan of Eclipse, Thomas Laffont of Coatue, and Pierre Lamond) for supporting your vision! #secondarymarket #privatemarket #marketplace #unicorns #stockoptions

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https://lnkd.in/dDGfRVai "The amendments can be broken down into five core components, and while they don’t actively advance the fortunes of AI companies, they do make their lives easier. For example, one amendment will replace criminal penalties for perjury with civil ones, meaning the act now invokes no criminal charges for any violation and the legal repercussions of stepping out of line are significantly reduced.  The amended bill now also cuts the Attorney General’s ability to seek civil penalties “unless a harm has occurred or there is an imminent threat to public safety.” The amended bill makes the Attorney General’s office the main regulatory body for AI, rather than an originally proposed state regulatory body."

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