Best Clips of 2022 - a16z Podcast  ## Metadata - Author: **a16z Podcast** - Full Title: Best Clips of 2022 - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/ad10a260-3e1a-4fef-9af8-f02b7c165707 ## Highlights - Human lifetime investment shift in the digital universe Key takeaways: • The internet has given rise to a new continent, which is called Atlantis. • People spend a third of their day on the internet. • This has increased from zero in 1991. Transcript: Speaker 6 You can think of the internet as basically giving rise to a new continent. OK, imagine an Atlantis that just arose out of the middle of the ocean. And people were just taking commuter flights there back and forth each day. OK, so you'd spend eight hours in Atlantis and 16 hours at home. That's really what the internet is. You know how I can prove that? Well, we're in it right now. Well, right, exactly. Like, one way of thinking about it is, ask themselves, what percentage of their time they spend their waking hours, they spend looking at a screen of some kind? OK, whether it's laptop, mobile phone, tablet, they're a smartwatch, something like that. Right? What percentage of that time is that for you, sir? Speaker 1 I unfortunately have to say it's probably like 14 hours a day. But I'm probably an outlier. Something like that. I'd say probably the average person, though, right? It's a third of their day, maybe eight hours. Speaker 6 That's right. So what that means, and that's up from basically zero in 1991. Yes. Right? So this Atlantis, this cloud continent, right? So just to extend the metaphor, we're taking these commuter planes up to the cloud continent 14 hours a day and coming back and we're only spending two hours of our waking lives, in your Case, on the land. And 14 hours in the cloud, right? For other people, it might only be a few, like three or four hours, but like, that's amazing. Billions of people have migrated huge chunks of their lives to this cloud continent. OK? When I say billions, I mean like three something billion just on Facebook, right? And you add all the people with smartphones and so on. So it's under three, four billion people in the world. Half the people of the Earth are now spending half their lives in this cloud continent, half their waking hours, OK? Up from nothing in 1990 something. ([Time 0:05:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/863b403f-37d9-47db-b669-e6903b21fe61)) - The Inspiration and Motivation Behind Elon Musk's Success Key takeaways: • Mike Scott believes that it is important for companies to strive for the top spot in their industry, and that this can be achieved through creativity and innovation. • Private industry is different from governmentrun industries in that it is more creative and allows for more innovation. Transcript: Speaker 1 And even when we, when Apple went public round 1980, our president Mike Scott, maybe eight one or two, started a little company with some people I funded into that. He's a friend. And actually we did a launch of a rocket from out at sea from somewhere. So I don't know, there were a bunch of rocket engineers around saying it is possible to do with, let's say money. Now governments have all the resources, you know, but they're stale and their approach is because of it. Here's what we can do very successfully, very stable. We know we'll get there if we put enough money in and test enough. And private industry works so differently. I've only been in private. And I just love having ideas and thinking about them and, you know, thinking different and the creativity that comes about when you think, oh gosh, I could do something they haven't Done before. Or maybe the resources are cheaper. The sorts of huge computing devices are cheaper to make and maybe certain types of motors. And I can do something that hasn't been done before, sensors that didn't exist before. And what's you got to always shoot for the top being, you know, one of the leaders in the world. Speaker 4 And that's just how we think. Speaker 1 So a lot of times when I think of government versus private, I also come down to types of people, which is very important. And you have an inventor who could be given a job and they've gone through all the right, they have the right skill sets and they've gone through the right university, you know, major Some PhDs. And they're an engineer and they can design what you sign them. Speaker 4 But then there's the inventor. You've got to go along. ([Time 0:22:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9946724d-c24c-47dd-9a7f-5ca2dbaf670e)) - Steve Jobs: The Innovator Key takeaways: • It is hard to predict the future one year ahead. • It is easier to predict the future two years ahead. • It is harder to predict the future three years ahead. Transcript: Speaker 1 And that was the first time, Oh my gosh, up till then our company valuation was the same as the old Apple II days. And then all of a sudden we sold it to everyone in the world and our sales doubled and our profits doubled and the board gave Steve Williams and stock options and jet airplanes. That was the turning point. And then the iPhone was even better. And it was based on the iPod, not the reverse, not a phone that will include an iPod. And more like it's an iPod, but you get a phone with it. And so it's hard to say that you really see the future more than a year ahead when you're working a year ahead on your projects. Whenever I tried to see the future a year ahead, I knew it one year ahead because I was working on it. If I look two years ahead and made some guesses, oh my gosh, other aspects, other technologies and all came out from outer space and people's desire which way they want to go was different. It's very hard to predict even two years ahead successfully, the way I work. Nowadays, we got huge big companies. So it's kind of like anything that work on is going to be successful. It's not as much of a gamble, but you know, real real inventors like to gamble, like to prove the world that they can do more than you ever mentioned. Our second clip for the privateer team is with the other two co-founders, chief scientist Dr. ([Time 0:26:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/639380df-b76e-4ed3-870b-07358430f513))