Matt Swayne

A Christmas Carol: A Visit From The Post-Singularity Future

by Matt Swayne
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Scrooge cowered on his knees. The visits of the first two ghosts shook him to the core of his miserly being. He knew the Ghost of Christmas Future was next. Scrooge, after all, had been reading Malthus. An unmistakable thud of a piano chord — probably an  E major, with reverb set on foreboding — sliced through the chilly air of Scrooge’s dark quarters. Scrooge winced. He opened his eyes slowly, expecting to see a tall, ominous, black robed figure, most likely armed with a scythe, or at the very least a sickle. Instead, he saw a rather diminutive man wearing wire-rimmed glasses and holding a palm-sized device in his hand. “Hi. My name is Ray Kurz…” He suddenly stopped his introduction. “Oh, wait. That’s not the line. Let me try again.” the spirit cleared his throat. “I am the [...]

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How to Fund the Future: Enter The Vision Capitalists

by Matt Swayne
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Two bits of news recently passed by without excessive fanfare, but these seemingly unconnected stories had huge implications about how the future is being funded, or underfunded, as the case may be. First, there was news that Google bid $6 billion to buy Groupon and, more astoundingly, Groupon reportedly rejected the offer. Groupon is essentially a coupon company. Not trying to dismiss the value of Groupon — it’s an interesting (though not novel) business model, but in the big scheme of things, how important is Groupon to the future? I mean, what would biotech companies working on human longevity projects do with $6 billion? How far would a few billion bucks go to fund a Reprap-like project? Could a quantum computer company use $6 billion? Groupon has joined several other companies as darlings of the current venture capital pantheon. Zynga, [...]

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