The best early-stage venture capital (VC) investors in defense and resilience over the next decade will outperform by doing what current mainstream VC still structurally avoids: investing with operational patience, systems-level clarity, and moral clarity — under radical uncertainty. Here's what they’ll get right, and the key success factors that enable >5x+ returns, true alpha, … Continue reading Generating 5x+ Alpha in Defense/Resilience VC
Quantum computing can close the SME credit gap in Germany by resolving systemic data asymmetries that legacy financial institutions and classical machine learning models cannot overcome. In doing so, it could realign ESG-linked capital with high-quality, underfunded industrial firms at the heart of Germany’s economic resilience.[Thinkstorm Thesis] Context: Why SME Lending Is Broken — Especially … Continue reading Quantum Computing: Fixing SME Lending in Germany
Last week I met with Brendan Baker to exchange notes on venture capital observations -- and catch up with him on joining Rackhouse as Partner. Brendan asked me why I think most GPs fail - quite an open-ended question, and I took it as "why do most GPs fail to raise more than 1 fund." … Continue reading Trust in Venture Capital: Why GPs Fail
[This is one of the first 'Tactical Notes' - short-format observations that I jotted down some time ago, where I feel that this snippet is enough and no long format essay is necessary] Michael Polanyi’s notion of tacit knowledge (what we know but cannot fully articulate), know-how resides in practice, habits, culture, and embodied skills … Continue reading Tactical Notes: Tacit Knowledge — What We Know But Cannot Fully Articulate
Concept: If your deck can’t clarify conviction, cadence, and character in one slide, don’t raise yet. Startups founders aren't the only ones with bad pitch slides. Over the years, I’ve written about how a cluttered team slide in a founder deck often betrays deeper issues—misaligned roles, unclear value, or a résumé-driven identity crisis. But fund … Continue reading Fund Managers: Your Fund Slide Sucks, Too
I am befuddled why "Defense Investing" is treated differently from "Investing". As if the rules of behavioral economics don't apply anymore when national security is at stake. You are still offering an investment product to investors. You still have to acknowledge all realities of Conviction, Cognitive Bias, and the subtle zero-sum of early-stage investing. The … Continue reading Who’s on the Other Side of That Trade?
Venture Capital Funds are a two-sided service business: You connect startups one one side with money from investors (Limited Partners = "LPs") on the other side. Strictly speaking, "investing" is more of a catch-all phrase of three things the local financial regulator [1] wants you to do: Direction of capital deployment, Stewardship of capital and … Continue reading Beyond ‘Founder-First’: Designing what Actually Serves
Complexity masquerades as flexibility— but it often creates the very fragility it claims to prevent. No one likes high fragmentation and complexity. Many small vendors lead to inefficient purchasing decisions, and someone needs to train you on all these new machines and vendors. You could start releasing design documents on usage patterns. Or perhaps there … Continue reading Why Layers Lie: Careful with Overlays in Defense Resilience
“Why are you not convinced by trillions of dollars? What has happened to your business instinct? Are you stupid?” -- Admiral Rob Bauer, Chair of NATO's Military Committee, 2024 (via Financial Times) This was addressed to Western financial institutions during a NATO industry forum in Washington, where Bauer expressed frustration at the persistent reluctance of … Continue reading Navigating the Complexities of Defense Private Equity: Unique Challenges and Elevated Risks
We often use the term "Defense Industry" in conversations. I've done so, too, when talking about primes and their defense products — where armed forces are their only customers. And I think I am doing a disservice to my LPs. As an investor, it's a bit more tricky: What about militarization of civil infrastructure? Or … Continue reading Defense is Not a Sector or an Industry
