Richard Rock

25 years investing in venture capital and public markets. Free markets, free people, and civil discourse can make the future better.

[Bruce Richards @Bruce_Markets]

The 1-in-5-Quadrillion Photo

December 2007. A UNICEF charity calendar shoot in Barcelona. A 20-year-old Messi bathes a five-month-old baby from Mataró.

This Sunday, that baby faces him in the World Cup final.

The chain of events required:

1.That specific baby gets picked for the shoot = 1 in 5,000

2.Messi is the player he’s paired with = 1 in 20

3.The baby grows up to become a professional footballer = 1 in 10,000

4.Messi is still playing 19 years later, at age 39 = 1 in 50

5.Argentina and Spain both survive a 48-team bracket and meet in the final = 1 in 20

6.Messi becomes the greatest Argentine player ever = 1 in 10

7.Yamal becomes the best player in Spain = 1 in 500

Multiply it through:

5,000 × 20 × 10,000 × 50 × 20 × 10 × 500 = 1 in 5 quadrillion (5 × 10¹⁵)

For scale: that’s the same as picking one predetermined second at random from the last 160 million years, every second since the Jurassic, and landing on the exact moment Messi is holding the baby.

Sunday at MetLife, both ends of the chain walk out of the same tunnel.

One of them leaves with the trophy.

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

If you want to supercharge building in California again, you're going to need to repeal and reform CEQA

Millions of units of housing are blocked every year using CEQA. Housing should be built by-right, and not require the level of review it does today.

[World of Engineering @engineers_feed]

On September 9, 1947, engineers working on the Harvard Mark II computer found a moth trapped in a relay.

They taped it into the logbook with the note: "First actual case of bug being found."

Grace Hopper's team made the entry.

The word 'bug' for a software error existed before this, but this moment fixed it in engineering culture permanently.

The logbook is in the Smithsonian. The moth is still there.

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

On a hot July day, a single mature tree in your yard pumps somewhere around 100 gallons of water up from its roots and out through its leaves as water vapor. A mature elm with 150,000 leaves can clear that in a day.

As that water evaporates off the leaf surface, it carries heat away with it, the same basic physics that makes sweat work. The air around the canopy drops measurably.

The cooling effect of a single large tree transpiring 100 gallons of water is roughly equivalent to two household air conditioning units running all day. Except it runs on sunlight and groundwater, costs nothing, and has been doing it since before your house was built.

A yard with mature canopy runs 5 to 10 degrees cooler than a paved or treeless yard next door. That's not a feeling. It's a physics difference you can measure with a thermometer. The urban heat island is real, and it gets worse one removed tree at a time.

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is this weekend, before another hot ass July like this one comes around.

[Richard Rock @RichardRock4now]

@miles_commodore Then we should probably teach about ETFs not mutual funds.

[Larry Sanger @lsanger]

TIL Bluetooth doesn’t eat much of your phone battery at home but does in crowded places like the airport—where you’re constantly passing unknown other Bluetooth transmitters, each of which must be checked by your phone. So, turn it off in crowded places & save battery.

[Richard Rock @RichardRock4now]

@TimmerFidelity The Taylor rule has been widely discredited. there is no strong case for Raisin rates this year.

[Valar Atomics @valaratomics]

Today, Valar Atomics became the first nuclear startup to make electricity, and we did it by powering an NVIDIA Spark.

This is the first meeting of advanced nuclear and AI; two technologies which will transform the next century.

But that’s only the start of our collaboration.

[Richard Rock @RichardRock4now]

@Saronic Rapid, iterative, innovation and improvement is America’s superpower.

[Mohamed A. El-Erian @elerianm]

Right out of the gate at the major central bank panel in Sintra...
Expressing "regret" over being "bound by forward guidance," ECB President Lagarde reiterates the shift:
Abandoning forward guidance in favor of framework guidance.
And yes, she adds, markets "will have to do their own homework."
Fed Chair Warsh, following, noted "common cause" with President Lagarde, welcoming the central bank community's openness to fresh thinking.
#economy #markets #centralbanks #federalreserve #ecb @Lagarde #kevinwarsh

[Richard Rock @RichardRock4now]

@jarvis_best The political affiliation of civil servants shouldn’t matter, as long as they are willing to effectively implement the policies of the democratically elected officials, regardless of party affiliation.

[Richard Rock @RichardRock4now]

@FrankBr05713205 Thank you for doing that. How widespread is this problem? Are there groups organizing to solve for it? Either with small, friendly terms for a loan or other grants?

[Richard Rock @RichardRock4now]

@BillAckman Then California said, hold my beer.

[Richard Rock @RichardRock4now]

@engineers_feed This can’t be right. Because the days feel shorter as I get older.

[surya @suryamidha]

kind of incredible that boise, idaho got a $1T company before new york or all of europe

[Richard Rock @RichardRock4now]

@elerianm The fund is acting responsibly by limiting redemptions to the previously agreed upon 5%. This protects the value for non-redeeming LPs and redeeming LP’s can submit for additional redemptions in future quarters as provided by the documents they agreed to.

[Richard Rock @RichardRock4now]

@mattparlmer I read this as a research issue not a procurement issue. Limiting the scope of defense department research to non-commercially viable projects limits competition with research for commercially viable projects.

[Richard Rock @RichardRock4now]

@RobertJohns 8VC, Riot, Carpenter Capital and Hyperion

[Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors @isaiah_p_taylor]

Moments ago, Valar Atomics took Ward 250 critical for the first time. This fulfills President Trump’s EO 14301, which called for 3 advanced reactors to go critical by July 4th.

This is our second criticality as a company, and an important step toward our goal of power by July 4.