Research essays and short-form notes from Awesome Ventures — tracking structural transitions in technology, venture, and the systems being built around them.https://awesome-ventures.vc/enhttps://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/how-investors-stress-test-market-sizing/https://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/how-investors-stress-test-market-sizing/Most sizing slides describe a market assembled for the meeting, not one that exists. The number that survives scrutiny is one whose every figure has provenance.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTEssayDecision SystemsFundraisingDecision SystemsFoundersDiligenceYekSoon Lokhttps://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/reading-your-own-deck-like-a-skeptic/https://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/reading-your-own-deck-like-a-skeptic/Founders are structurally unable to read their own decks as a skeptic would. The fix is a method that locates the one assumption carrying the entire story.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTEssayDecision SystemsFundraisingPitch DeckDecision SystemsFoundersYekSoon Lokhttps://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/the-questions-that-kill-a-series-a-deck/https://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/the-questions-that-kill-a-series-a-deck/Most Series A decks die in the first meeting to four or five plain questions a disciplined partner asks — questions a founder can run on themselves first.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTEssayDecision SystemsFundraisingPitch DeckDecision SystemsFoundersDiligenceYekSoon Lokhttps://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/why-i-stopped-writing-checks-and-built-an-instrument/https://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/why-i-stopped-writing-checks-and-built-an-instrument/Four bets across twenty-nine years turned out to be one bet. The scarce input in venture was never capital — it was judgment. So I stopped writing checks and built the instrument.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTEssayDecision SystemsJudgmentDecision SystemsCapital AllocationYekSoon Lokhttps://awesome-ventures.vc/notes/the-shape-of-the-editorial-surface/https://awesome-ventures.vc/notes/the-shape-of-the-editorial-surface/On the difference between a website and an enduring intellectual platform — and what changes when you build the second.Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTNoteVenture IntelligenceYekSoon Lokhttps://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/ai-infrastructure-wars-energy-production-defines-global-supremacy/https://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/ai-infrastructure-wars-energy-production-defines-global-supremacy/AI energy consumption is now compounding four times faster than grid capacity additions. Which countries resolve the mismatch first will determine which countries lead in artificial intelligence over the next decade.Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTEssayAI SystemsAIAI InfrastructureEnergyGeopoliticsAwesome Ventureshttps://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/the-ai-endurance-test-why-task-half-life-is-a-strategic-imperative-for-deep-tech-founders/https://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/the-ai-endurance-test-why-task-half-life-is-a-strategic-imperative-for-deep-tech-founders/AI systems demonstrating brilliant capability on specific tasks remain brittle when run continuously. Recent empirical work proposes a useful framework for the pattern — and a clearer view of which AI companies become structurally defensible.Wed, 18 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTEssayAI SystemsAIDeep TechArchitectureAwesome Ventureshttps://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/ais-unprecedented-acceleration-a-vcs-smart-brevity-breakdown-of-bond-capitals-2025-ai-report/https://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/ais-unprecedented-acceleration-a-vcs-smart-brevity-breakdown-of-bond-capitals-2025-ai-report/Mary Meeker's BOND Capital May 2025 'Trends — Artificial Intelligence' report documents a cycle compressing several decades of typical technology-curve dynamics into eighteen months. The structural signals worth carrying forward.Tue, 03 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTEssayAI SystemsAICapital AllocationGeopoliticsAI InfrastructureYekSoon Lokhttps://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/from-bretton-woods-to-weaponized-interdependence-a-vc-playbook-for-the-geo-tech-age/https://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/from-bretton-woods-to-weaponized-interdependence-a-vc-playbook-for-the-geo-tech-age/The post-Cold War consensus around rules-based free trade has wound down. What replaces it — and the three technology categories that sit at its critical seams.Sun, 18 May 2025 00:00:00 GMTEssayTechnological ShiftsGeopoliticsCapital AllocationAIEnergyFinancial InfrastructureYekSoon Lokhttps://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/visa-stablecoin-cross-border-payments/https://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/visa-stablecoin-cross-border-payments/Visa's expanded USDC settlement program is not just a payments story. A core component of the dominant global payment network is being quietly re-platformed onto blockchain rails.Tue, 05 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMTEssayEnterprise InfrastructureFinancial InfrastructureStablecoinsYekSoon Lokhttps://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/navigating-space-industry-and-climate-impact/https://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/navigating-space-industry-and-climate-impact/The Department of Commerce's joint study of the civil space industrial base — with NASA and NOAA — is a signal worth reading. The fact that the study is being conducted at all is more useful than any specific finding will be.Wed, 08 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMTEssayTechnological ShiftsDeep TechGeopoliticsCapital AllocationYekSoon Lokhttps://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/how-startups-can-leverage-data-successfully-to-raise-your-next-round/https://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/how-startups-can-leverage-data-successfully-to-raise-your-next-round/The 2023 venture environment is materially different from the one that closed 2021. A reading of which signals matter most in the reset — and which are giving founders and investors false readings.Thu, 19 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMTEssayVenture IntelligenceCapital AllocationDiligenceYekSoon Lokhttps://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/rise-of-crypto-and-its-future/https://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/rise-of-crypto-and-its-future/The 2022 crypto collapse is a story of the speculative wrapper, not the infrastructure layer. The harder and more useful question is what does survive.Tue, 22 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMTEssayEnterprise InfrastructureStablecoinsFinancial InfrastructureCapital AllocationYekSoon Lokhttps://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/why-awesome-ventures-invests-in-climate-change/https://awesome-ventures.vc/insights/why-awesome-ventures-invests-in-climate-change/The Inflation Reduction Act, the European energy crisis, and a year of climate extremes converge into a different investment case for climate technology — one that no longer needs the environmental argument to clear capital diligence.Tue, 23 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMTEssayTechnological ShiftsEnergyDeep TechCapital AllocationYekSoon Lok