I'M FEELING SPICY TODAY. I’ll say the quiet parts out loud for people into tech: 1. Memecoins are gambling. What is the difference between going to a casino and trading memecoins? 2. Corporate job security in is an illusion right now. Somehow it's more safe to be an entrepreneur with no health insurance than working at a mid-level job at Google. 3. No-one is talking about how Discord opened up their platform for apps a few days ago. All of a sudden you have access to their 200M users. Fortunes will be made. 4. The HEIC file format is a sham. If Apple had a heart, they would use JPEGs. 5. AI will put hundreds of thousands out of work. When I scroll through X, I see people saying there’s zero chance that AI replaces jobs, arguing “It will make them more productive.” I don’t think so. It’s not rocket science. If they are more productive, there will be less need for people. Those people will have other jobs. Am I missing something here? 5. People made fun of Mark Zuckerberg over the metaverse for like 2 years. Zuck was right. More and more interest in VR is coming from everyday people. More and more applications are becoming interesting. As soon as they stop looking just like “face computers,” that’s when it’ll take off. For now, reality is the ultimate “virtual reality.” Can we agree that Zuck was onto something with this metaverse thing? 6. Creators become the next presidents and prime ministers. We saw reality TV stars and celebrities become presidents—Trump, Schwarzenegger etc. Soon, creators will be too. Ron DeSantis spent $6,831 for every vote he received this year. Wild. If it cost Biden the same thing, and he gets as many votes as in 2020, he will have spent $550 billion dollars getting elected. Creators will be way more efficient at distribution than legacy politicians, for better or worse. 7. Every social app looks exactly the same. Like literally the same. It’s all short-form videos and algorithms optimized for time spent. There will be a breakout social app that looks nothing like what we’ve got going on right now and it's going to be glorious. 8. Workshops are the new webinars. Most people don’t realize they are subscribing to a bunch of newsletters by signing up. 9. VCs are in soul-searching mode. Founders are realizing they could bootstrap 99% of the startup ideas they have. Prices of deep tech, clean tech, medical device, and AI chip companies are set to skyrocket as VCs look to fund capital-intensive businesses. 10. The average founder of a GPT wrapper company will make more money than the average venture-backed AI startup. The talent war among venture-backed AI companies is fierce. If you can keep your GPT wrapper startup really niche and under 5 employees, you’ll probably do well. ChatGPT is getting unbundled, and unbundled fast. 11. Building a newsletter business isn’t much of a startup. I love building newsletters; it’s way easier but virtually zero “product risk”. 12. You’d be surprised how many startups spend millions of dollars a year of other people’s money trying to scale a business without a dialed offer. 13. ‘Clean’ has become the new ‘fat-free’—a marketing masterstroke. From food to cleaning products, this label has captured the hearts of health-conscious consumers. It’s not just about the quality of the products; it’s about the brilliance of branding. 14. You’ll swap LLMs like you change your clothes. People think ChatGPT will be the next Google, but the reality is the next Google will be spread out among hundreds of LLMs. LMK where you violently agree or disagree with me. What am I missing? Your friend, @gregisenberg (toss me a follow for more hot takes) -- 4 bonus hot takes on my newsletter (subscribe, you won't regret it). You'll get free startup ideas. gregisenberg.ck.page/posts/y…