Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and all the Giving Pledge billionaires, should rather do what Peter Thiel does -go investing their cash and/or (liquidated) fortune in futuristic projects. – [VIDEO]

This morning, I wrote that I disaprove Bill Gates and Warren Buffett&#8217-s Giving Pledge operation, because I rather favor billionaires investing in young startups lead by visionaries. Well, just after the publication of that post, I stumbled on the &#8220-Audacious Optimism&#8221- event, which satisfies my request.

The Thiel Foundation is encouraging philanthropists to donate more money to scientific pursuits that could lead to big breakthroughs in medicine, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology, among other fields.

Note that Peter Thiel draws a distinction between “extensive” technologies, which “take things that are working and replicate them&#8221-, and “intensive” technologies, which try to “take the things that are best in the world and make them qualitatively and dramatically better&#8221-.

Too much seed money could kill HubDub -and the other prediction market startups.

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QUESTION: Why did Monitor 110 fail?

ANSWER: Too much money.

  1. The lack of a single, &#8220-the buck stops here&#8221- leader until too late in the game-
  2. No separation between the technology organization and the product organization-
  3. Too much PR, too early-
  4. Too much money-
  5. Not close enough to the customer-
  6. Slow to adapt to market reality-
  7. Disagreement on strategy both within the Company and with the Board.

Personally, my view is that the concept should be excellent.

Being first on a market helps.

Hiring visionaries and leaders helps.

Picking up and developing the right technology helps.

But the key is the concept.

Nigel Eccles got the concept right.