Could the answer be that on average Canadian VCs are simply not rich enough compared to their American counterparts and the few that are succumb to the peer pressure of trying not to be the one schmuck who lost a lot of money?
I've seen the same behavior from freshly minted American millionaires who want to take a swing at this "angel investor" thing due to FOMO.
>I've noticed it's both a very real thing and a very wide spread thing.
Sorry, just to be clear -- is the very real thing the fact that Canadian Funds believe Canadians aren't ambitious enough or is the real thing (in your opinion) that Canadians aren't ambitious enough.
Funny, when I was trying to formulate a theory in my mind I was thinking of the phrase "vicious cycle". I was close enough, I think:)
I'm wondering if it's because Canadians and other countries with similar environments have been conditioned to exercise a different muscle: getting and retaining public funding. The incentive there is to under-promise and deliver/over-deliver, or at least appear to be delivering or over-delivering on paper. It's like that because the public judges are often much less knowledgeable and are forced to judge you on what you said you were going to do on your initial proposal and you're often times forced to start working before any money is deposited in your bank account.
In Roberts reply to my comment above, he mentioned I factor I thought was a 40-60% contributor, I'd say your observed factor is a contributor, and if I was asked to assign a value I'd say between 10-30%. I should probably write a blog post/phd on this.
In Canada I don't think it's the same reasoning. We don't shame ambition, but we also prefer to be a "big fish in a little pond."
It's the inferiority complex that comes from living so close to America. Companies and individuals that stay here are mostly focused on becoming the best Canadian version of the thing.
This is a well-known thing in Scandinavia (or at least I think it's well-known - I'm not Scandinavian.) They call it the "Law of Jante". (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante) I didn't know it was a thing in Irish culture too.
We don't have a word for it that I'm aware of, but I would say that is at least 40-60% of the undertone I notice. Even when I myself was getting into startup stuff 20+ years ago, I very very very vividly recall my father looking at me and saying with real distain "why do you think you have to be better than everyone else?".
To add to that, they seem to have anticipated the OP's reaction since it was mirrored by the Calorie Control Council (industry cartel?) and are literally saying: if the study is sound and if you are worried about clotting or heart disease you need to watch your intake. This is because they claim the amount that was used was the same amount in common sugar-free sodas.
If the OP is saying their intake is way higher than that and that the only way they can reduce that is to return to their old sugar habit and become clinically obese, then yeah, without additional information I guess it's better to stay on sweeteners. But if you're escaping a burning building and are in danger of getting hit by a car when doing so, the course of action is to avoid getting hit by the car -- not run back into the burning building or wait till the car hits you.
If you live in a place with accessible healthcare (easy access, fast appointments, or cheap, depending on your criteria) you should just keep tabs on your heart at least.
Some people are wary of enabling ceos of disruptive technologies become the richest people in the world, take control of key internet assets and -- in random bursts of thin-skinned megalomania -- tilt the scales towards politicians or political groups who take action that negatively affect their own quality of life.
It sounds absurd, but some are watching such a procession take place live as we speak.
If being sued by the world's richest billionaire or the whole non-profit thing didn't complicate matters, and if the board had any teeth, one could wish the board would explore a merger with Anthropic with Altman leaving at the end of all of it and save everyone another years worth of drama.
Is it just me or is Brockman leaving absolutely huge ? I can’t believe this isn’t front page. Basically everyone who is anyone has left or is leaving. It’s ridiculous.
For someone who cares deeply about the future of the company, lining up several significant departures temporary or otherwise on the same dates--including your own--seems the opposite of damage control.
I could imagine a parody of the discussion between Altman and the board go something like this:
It does say that, seems kind of strange though, rapidly growing company, apparently an absolutely key member of facilitating that growth and, poof, gone for 6 months at least.
Is the tıtle purposely ambiguous for clicks? They obviously mean each liquid bottle has to be max 100 ml, not that the total amount of liquids allowed is 100 ml, right?
It exists in non-modern Russian and modern languages - such as Ukrainian - Cyrillic alphabets in various forms, sometimes with top and bottom horizontal strokes, sometimes just like this.
> Making silly memes or offensive jokes gets you about 10x the attention
Ironically, the front section of Harper's featuring short tidbits and excerpts from random sources had a social-media-esque ADD vibe to it that made it feel edgy to aspiring and enlightened 20 year-olds. E.g. post 9-11 there was a list of songs banned from the radio ("it's raining men" etc.) sharing a page with a court transcript of a wiretapped conversation between a Mafia don to one of his stooges that wouldn't be out of place in an episode of the Sopranos.
Lapham Quarterly also had that vibe -- I seem to remember a tongue-in-cheek visual on how many people Rambo killed in every Rambo movie.
Now and then I see some people with thousands of followers on twitter mimic that style to great effect.
The main difference is obviously how far down the rabbit hole they went with connecting two bits of random information, e.g being able to juxtapose a Don't Play list for the radio during modern times to a Don't Eat list from an edict in the Roman Empire during some plague.
You make a great point. Harper's own website acknowledges Lapham's contributions were done to add some breezier reads to the magazine:
In 1984, Harper’s Magazine was completely redesigned by editor Lewis H. Lapham and MacArthur...Recognizing the time constraints of the modern reader, the revived magazine introduced such original journalistic forms as the Harper’s Index, Readings, and the Annotation to complement its acclaimed fiction, essays, and reporting.
I've seen the same behavior from freshly minted American millionaires who want to take a swing at this "angel investor" thing due to FOMO.