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5 Vaccines and Counting

Covid vaccines

For truth in the pandemic I’ve been following Dr. Eric Topol on Twitter. Last week he tweeted: Summary of the 5 Phase 3 vaccine trials. One theme: 100% protection from death and hospitalizations That is impressive! While the media is focused on all the troubles in quickly getting these vaccines into people’s arms, we need to realize the historic accomplishment of getting not just one...

Alternative Investment Models for Africa

Alternative Investment Models for Africa

In this episode, Geetha Tharmaratnam, Raj Kulasingam, Vivian Nwakah Christophe Viarnaud, and Luni Libes discuss alternative investment models in Africa.

For more details on these models, see California Capitalism or buy the book on Amazon.

The scale of agriculture

The scale of agriculture

If you took all the maize (corn) farms in the world and put them together, they’d not fit on the British Islands. Neither would rice or wheat. This fun YouTube video shows just how much space each crop takes up:

Efficiency vs. Resilience: The Texas Blackout

Sunset

The right framework can uncover the most hidden of assumptions. For example, the 2021 winter blackouts in Texas. While the politicians and news debate over windmills, natural gas, and deregulation, they are missing the the framework and thus talking trees instead of forest.   The better way to look at this problem is the consequence of a hidden tradeoff we make with all our big, complex...

Creating Angels

The Angel Accelerator

Out of the 320 million Americans, fewer than 320,000 are Angel investors, investing in startups. Quick math, that is less than 0.1% of all Americans. The ratio only gets worse elsewhere in the world. Why? Investing in startups is complicated. Historically, it’s a skill learned in an ad hoc apprenticeship, with new Angels observing more experienced Angels for months or years. Few people have...

Three types of companies and three types of mission-driven companies

Ben & Jerry's ice cream

I categorize companies into three categories: A- Companies focused solely on profits, running extractive businesses, unconscious to the needs of their employees, their communities, and the world as a whole. Most of the S&P 500 and Global 1,000 are in this group. B- Companies that truly care about ESG: Environment, Social, and Governance. In short, companies whose management works on improving...

Milquetoast

The Timid Soul

It’s been a long time since I mentioned my love of long-lived assumptions. This time it isn’t a story of a startup, but a story of an not-uncommon, but no everyday English word, milquetoast. The spelling makes it looks like an old loan Latin word borrowed from French 1,000 years ago. It’s not. It’s a fancy way of spelling “milk toast” a simple breakfast dish...

How I started Fledge and Africa Eats

Podcast: How I started Fledge and Africa Eats

Luni’s backstory starts the episode, Why Africa at 29:00, Africa Eats at 38:30

Listen as a podcast: Apple • Google • Amazon

Want more? Visit Fledge and Africa Eats.

New Year, New Signature, New Sticker

laptop sticker

8 days into the new year, people are already telling me they are tired of summarizing 2020, so let’s skip that and talk about 2021. Happy 2021! With the new year I’ve taken a moment to not only think about my goals for the year but to think about all of the various activities and organizations I’m participating in. It appears I do a lot, but I actually have a narrow focus for my...

Not Juggling, but Flashing

Egypt juggling

People who work with me think I don’t sleep. They see me working on multiple projects and getting more done than they think reasonable in any given week, month, or year. They conclude I’m one of those people who never sleeps. In reality, I sleep at least as much as they do. Maybe more. I’m just a better juggler. Look at my LinkedIn profile and you’ll find at least four...

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