Dear Friends & Family,

Do you say "please" when you enter a prompt in ChatGPT?

Call me old school, but I often add this little word to my commands.

Not because ChatGPT is a civilized human, but because I like to think of ourselves as a civilized humans.

And yes, I know it costs a few extra tokens, but I find this acceptable for the sake of maintaining a respectful communication.

It would be sad to see people forgetting civilized language when they accidentally talk to real humans in the future.

Betting against Sam Altman

If you are a founder, you better watch this video if you don't want to wake up one morning and discover that your product has been steamrolled by ChatGPT.

Altman argues that there are fundamentally two strategies to build on Artificial Intelligence:

There is one strategy where you assume that AI models do not get better, and you build all these little things on top of it to make up for its shortcomings.

The other strategy is to assume that the AI models stay on the same level of trajectory and the models keep getting better.

Ninety-five percent of the world should be betting on the latter category, but many startups have been building in the former category and will be steamrolled.

Darwinism in its purest form.

How do you compete against a Swiss army knife of applications with unlimited funding?

We live in amazing times.

Events, Events, Events

I had the pleasure of hosting a panel "Decoding Web3 - Strategies and Insights" at the Crypto Asset Conference hosted by the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center with four grand seigneurs of venture capital: Alex von Frankenberg from HTGF, Heinrich Zetlmayer from Yabeo, Olaf Hannemann from CV VC, and Dominic Briggs from Blockwall.

At the Dubai Token2049, Sagar facilitated meetings for our portfolio companies, met with potential investors and hosted a brunch with our friends from Jumper, bitsCrunch, Biconony, and Gelato on the Palm Jumeirah - despite a rare desert deluge which turned a few Rolls-Royces into boats.

Ben, Marcello and Sagar are also hosting a side event during the Berlin Blockchain Week, which commences on May 18.

And Ben and Sagar will host a brunch with founders and fellow VCs at the Consensus Austin starting May 29.

If you happen to be at either event, please ping them.

Recommended

A big Thank You to Maik Fechner who send us a link to the most inspiring video of Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo Global Management, speaking at the Norges Bank Investment Conference 2024.

Rowan has been in the business for over 40 years, and reflects how many financial products like high-yield bonds or ETFs were initially met with scepticism but have become a constant in the financial world today.

He also discusses the tailwind that investors have enjoyed for many decades and emphasizes that achieving above-average results in the future requires openness to new paradigms and a willingness to embrace contrarian opinions.

We loved every word of his presentation.

Here is our mantra: We believe that blockchain technology will fundamentally change banking and investing and that people in twenty years will wonder how it was ever possible to store value on proprietary databases.

Join our stellar investors

That is why we wake up each morning filled with optimism about technology's potential to leave a positive and enduring legacy.

Join us in shaping the future of blockchain technology and become an investor in our fund. We carefully select mission-driven founders which we believe to have the highest potential to redefine industries.

If you want to know more, just reply to this email.

Wolfgang with Ben, Marcel, and Sagar