Happy Saturday! Here is your weekly dose of the world of Miles.
Public VC Fund. Venture capital funds invest in private companies. And VC funds are usually private if not secretive affairs. No public solicitation allowed and only open to the rich. Now there are a handful of public VC funds open to all. A sign of a superhot 2021 bull market? Or an innovation worthy of model portfolios? For example, Sweater Ventures wants you to invest in VC from your phone. The Fundrise Innovation Fund touts its low fees. Also, there are DAOs that make VC-like investments. One example is VC3 which despite being on a public blockchain may not be open to all. (Were Business Development Companies aka BDCs, an earlier version of public VC?)
Public Art. I’m a fan of public art - particularly street art. Visiting Wynwood Miami or Montmartre Paris is always a treat. I’d love to learn more. Please share your recommendations for places to go or websites/instagram handles where I can learn more.
Public Coup Rhetoric. How much do you know about the violent racist coup carried out in Wilmington NC in 1898? Horrible enough. Then the state and federal government looked the other way. I recently finished reading Wilmington’s Lie, a well-written history of this episode. I took note of the Orwellian public rhetoric of the insurrectionists. They talked about restoring order when they caused the disorder. They talked about voting for members of the new city council and the mayor but threats of violence hovered over these “votes. The very people leading the mob were the ones, newly installed in power, calling for calm a day later. Chilling.
Until next week,
Miles