Hustle Cap // Intel // Dec. 10
Everything in its right place
Art and Investing in the Metaverse
Look, we’ll always have Metaverse detractors screaming about Nintendo Switch not being as immersive as Ready Player One. And we’ll continue to see boosters and hucksters promise the future. And we’ll never hear the end of New Yorker-esque article speak about how, “In a sign of modernity, the Metaverse will succeed and humankind will…”
But there are also rational takes solidifying about this moment and the gradual progress being made. We’re not the first to point to Shaan Puri’s take as a guiding light for how to think about the Metaverse:
With that in mind, here are a few reads and listens that document that progress and share ideas for investor participation.
Bloomberg’s Trillions podcast interviewed Matthew Ball, creator and manager of the Roundhill Investments META Ball ETF (holdings here), a fund that tracks hardware, software, data and services underpinning the Metaverse. It’s an unbelievably deep look at both the investment thesis and Ball’s vision of the future.
Jeffries (like every Equity Research shop) sets massive expectations for the Metaverse as an investment (via Business Insider).
Quick take: everyone outside the industry is hyper bullish and everyone inside the industry is angry at the perceived lack of progress. Tale as old as time.
Art in the Metaverse - FT Reviews the Radiohead KidAmnesia exhibition. Covid dashed the original plan to set up a physical exhibition in London at the Victoria & Albert Museum, so the visionaries of Radiohead decided to build an immersive virtual experience that blended music with visual art, instead.
Arts and Entertainment adoption (reposting on Disney’s efforts here) pushes forward, mainstream adopters will follow.
Oh, and Metaverse Real Estate is still booming.
Private Equity for Retail Investors
We’ve spoken at length about the interesting efforts underway at iCapital, Vanguard + Harbourvest, and other firms. Now, Barron’s has an excellent piece out about Partner’s Group, an O.G. global asset manager making real inroads towards democratizing PE investment.
They raised the first ‘40 Act PE fund in 2009
They launched a Collective Investment Trust in 2015 to serve Defined Contribution Plan Investors
They tokenized a fund offering in Singapore in September of 2021 (don’t ask about AML/KYC…)
And they’re not stopping until they have comprehensive access to the retail market. Will be fascinating to follow.
Us at 25: Owning the Issues
We’ve had some frustrating conversations recently, and noticed a common thread that we don’t think gets enough airtime. Whether you’re in a large or small company, or really any group of people, you can name the bad habits of your colleagues/friends etc: procrastination, pride, not listening, poor decision-making. But one topic that doesn’t get enough airtime: responsibility. Society has changed the meaning of responsibility. It’s been reduced to basics of showing up on time, looking respectable, carrying on professional commuincation. But let’s dig deeper here….
Have you had a situation as a customer that drove you mad recently? Do these sitautions sound familiar?
“Due to heavy call volume, the estimated wait time is 79 minutes.”
“The internet technician should arrive at your house between 11am and 7pm. Please be ready when he/she arrives”
The reason these are so frustrating is this: companies take their problem (not enough call center workers, inefficient scheduling/routing) and make it YOUR problem.
At work, you don’t see such clear examples of this but they’re all over the place.
Jr. Salesperson inviting boss to call: “We have our pitch at 4pm. Here are the folks who will be attending from the client side: Joe Schwarz (CFO), Mike Holland (Procurement), Karen Krimm (our contact).”
Issue: The boss is probably busy. This does nothing except tell him the names and roles of people who will be on the call. Do you expect the boss to track down this info ahead of time?
Responsible Sales talk track: “I know we have our pitch at 4pm today. Good news, we’ll have Joe Schwarz, the CFO on the call, who is the ultimate decision maker. Our contact Karen Krimm told us that Mike Holland from procurement is a very tough negotiator but ultimately what he says doesn’t matter. If we can convince Joe, its’ a done deal at the price we’ve quoted. We still have five hours til the meeting, so please reach out to me if you have any other questions in the meantime
Analyst passing along a requested data pull: “I’ve done the analysis you requested. Here is the spreadsheet.”
Issue: This Analyst has reduced his role to a data fetcher. He hasn’t done any analysis. He’s checked a box and passed the actual analysis to his boss. He’s also created work for himself in the future because you can bet he’ll have a “pls fix” in his inbox shortly.
Responsbile Analyst talk track: “Here are the numbers you’d asked for--client name, account number and invoice days outstanding. I noticed that the results in column D (days outstanding) were missing the contract expiration date and without that, we dont’ know whether we have a current contract in place or not. Billable amounts that are out of contract are highlighted orange.”
Product team troubleshooting a bug: “We’ve had a number of support cases about this issue. Putting some time on the calendar to discuss.”
Issue: Whose issue is this bug? Everyone’s. But if this analyst wants a promotion, she has to be someone who tries to neutralize the problem before calling all hands on deck.
Responsible Product talk track: “Because we have had 9 support cases on this issue, I reached out to Susan on the sales team and asked her how this impacts our clients’ workflow. She showed me that even though there’s a workaround, it’s inefficient and we really need to fix it, otherwise we’ll have very angry clients. Dropping a 2pm meeting on your calendars."