EIEIO...To Tell The Truth
The dislocation of institutions, middlemen, and trust
GSV’s weekly insights on the global growth economy. Join our community of entrepreneurs, investors, executives, educators, and students getting a window to the future by subscribing here:
EIEIO…Fast Facts
Entrepreneurship: $80 Million – The price Wix paid to buy bootstrapped, 6-month-old, solo-owned company Base44. (TechCrunch)
Innovation: ~3x - The S&P 500’s technology sector weight (32%) compared to the STOXX Europe 600’s (~8%). (Visual Capitalist)
Education: 43.1 million – The number of Americans who have completed some college, but have no credential. (Whiteboard Advisors)
Impact: 8,652 - The number of objects launched into space by the United States between 2020 & 2024, compared to 2,657 launched by the rest of the world combined during the same period. (Our World In Data)
Opportunity: $50k – The minimum LP commitment required for Coatue’s $1B interval fund, compared to the $5 million minimum required in its traditional funds. (This Week in Startups)
“Three things that can’t be hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth.” – Buddha
“People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe.” – Andy Rooney
“A lie gets halfway around the World before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” – Winston Churchill
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything”. – Mark Twain
The saying “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is a time tested idiom.
A modern version of that centuries old proverb is “Truth is in the eye of the beholder.”
To wit, after the U.S. attacks on the Iranian nuclear sites, President Trump said those positions had been “obliterated.”
Several days later, the New York Times and CNN leaked assessments of the strike questioned its success.
Who do you believe? It turns out peoples’ “truths” were directly related to who they voted for…If you voted for TEAM Trump, you thought “The Grey Lady” was lying, if you voted for Kamala, you were calling for impeachment.
Gen Z doesn’t trust any institution. Only 26% trust the news media and only 11% trust (bought) news anchors. 65% of Gen Z says it “always” questions a news story and only 4% even read a traditional newspaper.
When it comes to government just 19% think Congress can be trusted and a minuscule 3% have a “great deal of confidence”...That’s essentially blood relatives and paid staffers. And I’ve yet to meet anybody in that 3%. Only 10% believe the Supreme Court is a credible institution.
So while it came as a shock to the general public that 33 year old Socialist Democrat Zohran Mamdani easily won the NYC primary for Mayor last week, for people paying attention, it shouldn’t have.
Gen Z voters rejected established figures like former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo who were emblematic of the status quo. City run grocery stores, free public transportation, free child care, doubling down on NYC as a sanctuary city might seem like La La Land but for young people, they’ve been lied to about so many things by their elders, why not try something radically different?
With academic institutions, the shaper of young minds throughout the generations, trust has fallen through the floor. Just 42% of college graduates think it was worth it, down from 86% just 12 years earlier.
Trust with universities was violated because society encouraged high school graduates to go to college and take on loads of debt with the promise that they’d come out with a great job they otherwise wouldn’t have.
$1.8 trillion in debt later, only 52% of college graduates are getting jobs within their field of study and the half life of skills has plummeted from 30 years in 1980 to 5 years today.
Oh by the way, the wise counselors who told you to go into coding because that’s where the great jobs were? Wrong as rain. Today, the half life of technical skills is just 2.5 years and the unemployment rate for people with computer science degrees is double that of fine art majors.
The arbiter of truth has radically changed with the direct to consumer model that has transformed commerce has come to institutions. The “Brand Middleman” of the New York Times, or Fox News, Republican or Democrat, Harvard or Stanford is being replaced by Instagram, Reddit, independents, internships, and apprenticeships.
The New York Times motto is “all the news that’s fit to print…Fox is “fair and balanced”…I don’t think many people recognize those networks by who they say they are.
A brand is promise. You can say one thing but do another but it’s the action which makes the impression.
Spotify has $160 billion market cap and 680 million monthly active users by directly connecting the artist with the listener. TikTok is worth $225 billion with 1.6 billion users with 63% of GenZ getting their news from it. YouTube is worth roughly $500 billion and is easily the largest education network in the World with 2.8 billion people consuming content.
By removing friction between information and the informee, robust verification and authentication by the community, and freedom of speech, “my truth” can actually be the truth.
Market Performance
Market Commentary
Stocks rallied last week despite global tensions rising with United States airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites and a Worldwide “caution alert” for Americans.
NASDAQ advanced 4.3%, the Dow increased 3.8%, and the S&P 500 was up 3.4%. From the lows of April, the S&P has gained 24% and the NASDAQ has rocketed 33%. With one day to go for the first half of 2025, both the NASDAQ and the S&P are up 5%…just kind of a ho hum Market for sure. 😉
The AI Revolution is in full swing with NVIDIA reaching an all-time high last week, nosing past Microsoft as the most valuable public company in the World. Chip stocks climbed Friday as the U.S. and China finalized a trade deal with Taiwan Semiconductor and KLA also reaching all time highs.
Also evidence of the vigor back in growth companies is the performance of tech stocks and a robust IPO Market. To wit, the Technology Component of the S&P 500 is up 41% and Cathie Wood’s ARK ETF, a good proxy for hyper growth stocks has gained nearly 50%. The 97 IPOs YTD are up 41% with new leaders such as Circle, CoreWeave showing gigantic investor demand advancing over 500% and 400%, respectively.
We remain BULLISH overall and especially for emerging growth companies. With an IPO Market that has opened up, we expect to find the Stars of Tomorrow in increasing supply as they go public.
Need to Know
READ: Longevity Can Save America | NFX
READ: VCs are the worst run businesses … they never take their own advice |
WATCH: Billionaire investor Philippe Laffont on bitcoin: Every day I do think 'why do I not own it?' | CNBC
LISTEN: The Leadership Coach Sam Altman and Top AI Teams Trust | The Logan Bartlett Show
GSV’s Four I’s of Investor Sentiment
GSV tracks four primary indicators of investor sentiment: inflows and outflows of mutual funds and ETFs, IPO activity, interest rates, and inflation.
#1: Inflows and Outflows for Mutual Funds & ETFs
#2: IPO Market
#3: Interest Rates
#4: Inflation
Charts of the Week
Maggie Moe’s GSV Weekly Rap
Chuckles of the Week
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Connecting the Dots & EIEIO…
Old MacDonald had a farm, EIEIO. New MacDonald has a Startup…EIEIO: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Education, Impact and Opportunity. Accordingly, we focus on these key areas of the future.
One of the core goals of GSV is to connect the dots around EIEIO and provide perspective on where things are going and why. If you like this, please forward to your friends. Onward!
Make Your Dash Count!
-MM