Better late than never! These past few days was full of tech events. Even though I mentioned that I was probably not sending a newsletter this week, I figured it would be nice to give my readers an overview of what has happened, and what is to come. I did not attend in person the Brazil at Silicon Valley , but was able to get key insights from a special correspondent. Nevertheless, I was able to attend Riverwood’s Latin American Forum 2023. The event itself is exclusive and nothing can be shared in the media. But, I will share here what I can about side events and some general thoughts. Next week is the Web Summit Rio! I am a speaker and also a judge at the semifinal startups competition. ItauBBA is also one of the main sponsors and we will be there with the entire tech team. If you are too, come say hi! I am beyond excited - and next week I’ll share everything with you.
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BRAZIL (@) SILICON VALLEY 2023
My special correspondent was Rodrigo Barros, apart from being a good friend and extremely intelligent, Rodrigo is also co-founder of Amago Capital and spent some time studying at Stanford doing the Stanford Executive Program (SEP), LEAD certificate for corporate innovation, and other online courses. We share the love for tech and constantly exchange links and ideas. Below you will find a summary of all panels that occured. Hope you like it!
Brazil At Silicon Valley proved once again to be one of the most influential events in the Brazilian innovation ecosystem. The 2023 edition was attended by more than six hundred people from four hundred companies in forty-five different industries, and topics of discussion included the revolution in artificial intelligence (another “iPhone Moment” for the tech industry), Brazil´s unique position in climate change solutions, and the future of work – among many others.
Day 1:
Panel: Why is now a great time to build in Brazil? Angela Strange & Hugo Barra
· Every company should think about financial services to capture, satisfy, and better monetize clients.
· Adding financial services to a company is more burdensome than it should be – there is more room for finance as a service, lending as a service, and collection as a service.
· Investors are concerned about investing in credit startups in all markets. One reason is that the client must be attracted to every transaction. The opportunity is to blend credit into the software.
Panel: Quantum and the Cybersecurity Imperative Vikram Sharma
· Quantum computing will break current encryption in minutes.
· How long do we have? 5-10 years before we run into problems.
· We know the time; the risk is not doing anything.
Panel: AgTech: How Innovations in Food Systems Can Help Solve Climate Crisis
Matt Barnard, Teka Vendramini, Nolan Paul & Mary Pear
· Eighty percent of farmers in Brazil are smallholders, and out of these 15% have never been to school.
· Current practices only allow for sustainable agriculture for two billion people. Agriculture consumes 70% of the world´s freshwater.
· Four percent of the world’s population consumes thirty percent of the world’s fruit and vegetables. They are the most expensive calories but the cheapest sources of fiber. Sixty percent to 90% of people have a fiber deficit.
Panel:DemocratizingArtificial Intelligence
Alexandr Wang & Peter Norvig
· If AI becomes a platform, it will have an order of magnitude more apps than what other platforms enabled.
· Models are getting smaller and at one point they will run on devices.
· AI will become a major geopolitical force, so he does not think the US will pause its development.
· Many of the world's major problems are not solved by being 100 x faster or smarter.
· Education: 1-on-1 mentoring will be much more effective than the lecture format.
· Every job will be done differently in the future. Every knowledge worker will have to think about how to use these tools to produce a better version of what they do.
· Data is not oil, and it is not fungible. There will always be opportunities in this space.
· Brazil is in a strong position as AI creates a lot of opportunities. China used modern technologies to modernize quickly.
Panel: Effective corporate transformation: digital transformation & M&A
Leandro Balbinot & Henrique Muramoto
· When discussing M&A, always asks what the non-negotiables are.
· You cannot slow the growth of an acquired company because it will destroy the value you planned to capture.
· Digital Transformation: start small with products that make sense and gain confidence over time.
Panel: Global Investment Trends
Alex Clavel, Antoine Colaço, Mercedes Bent & Luis Lora
· Brazil has huge inefficiencies to be solved through technology.
· Why is Brazil giving up so many software sales to the U.S. or Europe? Keep building (software) and keep reaching out to VCs with your stats.
· Many times, great technology does not lead to an excellent product.
· Spend as much time building your decision-making skills and gut feelings as you spend studying.
· Focus not only on your customer but on the value generated on the whole ecosystem.
Panel: The Rise of Climate Tech Investing
Alex Laplaza, Phoebe Wang, Ida Hempel, Julia Sekula
· Thirty percent of global Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) could be produced in Brazil.
· Every sector must change the way it produces everything. Climate tech is so much more than carbon and forest conservation.
· Climate Tech is in part a solution for higher food prices, energy inflation, and supply chain disruptions.
Day 2:
Panel: Technology Trends and the Importance of Bold Leadership
Vinod Khosla & Julio Vasconcellos
· A.I. is larger than the iPhone. The extension of AI has not been fully understood yet.
· Teachers, Doctors, and Accountants: you will have your personalized A.I. assistant for these functions that no human can match.
· A.I. will multiply productivity by hundreds of percent.
· If you stop AI, it will be awfully bad for your country's economy in the long run.
· Whose advice to take in each subject is one of the most important decisions of an entrepreneur.
· Most people fail 100% of the time, but it does not look like that because they never quit.
· Expertise is amazing for incremental improvement, and horrible for developing new paths. Not a single large innovation came from a large company.
Panel: Looking ahead: Crypto in Brazil, the US, and Beyond
Emilie Choi & Brian Brooks
· This is the first time that the crypto winter matches an economic downturn.
· Crypto is the next version of the Internet in 10 years.
· Lessons from the browser introduction: you do not know where the value will occur in the value chain. Make multiple bets across different segments.
Panel: Orkut, Social Media and Mental Health
Orkut Buyukkokten & Pedro Earp
· Rising number of people with depression, anxiety, and other serious mental health issues.
· There is no problem with people spending time on social media, the problem is (social media) using tools to make people do things they would not do naturally.
· Productivity in most cases goes down when not working in the office. We will see the consequences 5-10 years down the road.
· How do you enable happiness: with communities.
Panel: Brazil 2023 Startup Study + AI Trends/Applications
Marina Mansur
· Even after 9 years, 43% of startups have not reached profitability yet.
· One-third of startups have less than 18 months of runway.
· Cloud is a major pain point, with 32% of cloud expenses misspent.
· USD2 billion annual funding gap for companies raising Series B or higher.
Panel: Research Insights on the Future of Work and Generative A.I.
Brent Hecht
· Two generational shifts in how work gets done: Hybrid work & Large Language Models (such as ChatGPT).
· Hybrid work: unclear impact on residential preference and land use.
· We should not use a text interface to communicate with the computer all the time.
· English is not a perfect universal representation: The “chocolate” article on the English Wikipedia is quite different from the one in the Spanish Wikipedia.
Panel: The Promise of Generative Artificial Intelligence
Ali Dalloul & Melissa Valentine
· GPT changes the economy of the tech business. The model, data, and tuning layers become more relevant.
· Co-pilot concept: The human is the pilot and A.I. is the assistant.
· The market is becoming crowded, you need to find a unique value proposition and solve a hard problem. If you are not solving a difficult personal or business need, you are unlikely to last long.
· English is the most common programming language today.
Arrival in Miami & Start of Pre-LTF Events
Private meetings & gatherings with founders from Latin America (majority late stage, unicorns, established tech companies)
Women in Tech side event & Start of LTF
Itau BBA & Mattos Filho joined forces to create the first ever women only side event happening during the week of Riverwood’s LTF. It was a lunch dedicated to women leaders in tech - and we gathered 30 women of the industry and around 10 nationalites. It is great to see every year the number of women founders, investors and executives who work with technology growing. We hope to make this a tradition in the years to come. I would like to thank my friend and a woman I admire a lot, Camilla Martes, partner at Mattos Filho, for putting this together with me!
Riverwood’s LTF 2023:
The event is in its 12th edition, and along the years it has evolved a lot. A couple of general insights:
growth with cash generation
customer centricity
importance of culture and talent management
never loose sight of the levers of long term value creation, even in challenging times
AI at the center
What did I learn from readers?
A reader sent over an article by Tech Crunch: Big-time VCs link arms for climate coalition. In summary, 24 VC firms commit to a net-zero portfolio by 2050.
“Two dozen VC firms have committed to reducing carbon emissions to net-zero by 2030 and achieving portfolio-wide net-zero emissions by 2050.
While writing the charter of the Venture Climate Alliance, launched today, the managing partners of some participating firms argued for more aggressive goals. So, is the industry meeting the climate moment?”
• Survey of 58 VC investors to understand their attitudes toward technology and the VC ecosystem.
• The VC community is bullish on the impacts of AI, especially generative AI, and expects it to drive innovation and growth opportunities over the next 12 months.
• 2022’s “tech wreck” had a mixed impact on the industry and is viewed as having both stifled and promoted innovation in various ways.
• VC funding levels are expected to decrease moderately or strongly over the next 12 months, partly due to the collapse of SVB, but fundraising plans have not changed significantly, and 2023 is expected to be a strong vintage year for fund performance.
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