GONZO CAPITAL ESSAYS
Long-form essays from Gonzo Capital on venture capital, technology, AI, internet culture, money, politics, power and modern life.
Long-form essays on venture capital, technology, artificial intelligence, internet culture, money, power, politics, and the increasingly strange systems shaping modern life.
Written from somewhere inside the machine, but rarely with the assumption that the machine knows what it is doing. Expect arguments, stories, experiments, historical detours, cultural debris, and occasional disagreements with the future.
LATEST ESSAYS
Everything here, newest first. If you would rather begin with a few carefully chosen bad decisions, try Start Here.
Tech Doesn't Understand Why You Don't Like It
Silicon Valley is extraordinarily good at imagining futures. Understanding the people expected to live in them is proving harder.
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The Internet Was Better When It Was Worse
The web became cleaner, smarter, faster and more personalized. Somewhere along the way, it also became less weirdly human.
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The Internet Ouroboros
AI learned from the human internet. Now the machine-generated web is beginning to train the machines.
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Everyone Is Asking Someone Else for Money
Founders ask VCs. VCs ask LPs. Somewhere above them, someone richer is still saying no.
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Music for People Who Aren't Listening
What happens when human musical history becomes training material for machines capable of producing more music than anyone can hear?
Read essay →The Most Observed Event in Human History
How the World Cup became a global testing ground for surveillance technology built to remain after everyone went home.
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Confessions of a Compromised Capitalist
From anti-capitalist to venture capitalist, and the uncomfortable contradictions that came with it.
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