Five Links for January

here are five links worth reading …

Venture Capitalists are much less ambitious than their private equity siblings
Straw-man article on how most venture capital firms do not take their own advice on company building and world domination …. and instead opt to play it safe. Be sure to check out the responses in the comments section (much disagreement and discussion). And please add your comments.

How Cartographers for the U.S. Military Inadvertently Created a House of Horrors in South Africa by Kashmir Hill
How hard-geocoding an IP address for a city can cause lots of problems. (Note: we have been thinking a lot about this at SafeGraph as we recently launched IP-to-Place).

Energy and the Information Infrastructure: The Digital ‘Engines of Innovation’ & Jevons’ Delicious Paradox by Mark P. Mills
“Humanity fabricates 1,000 times more transistors annually than the entire world grows grains of wheat and rice combined.” Those transistors consume more energy than the entire State of California. This is their story.

What-You-Know now beats Who-You-Know
The old adage that “it’s not what-you-know but who-you-know” is so entrenched that we don’t question the premise. We should. The What-You-Knows are on the rise.
Please add comments to the blog.

Do the Rich Get All the Gains from Economic Growth? by Russ Roberts
Roberts (the host of Econtalk — which is one of my all-time favorite podcasts) discusses the complexity of inequality.

BONUS Listen: Venture Stories: What Tyler Cowen Thinks About Basically Everything
Five Links reader Erik Torenberg interviews Five Links reader Tyler Cowen (who is one of the most interesting people in the world). A fascinating interview that will enliven your commute.

In addition — Some books I read since the last Five Links:

“America’s Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve” by Roger Lowenstein

“How the Internet Happened” by Brian McCullough


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