A Window to the Future 🔮
Signposts on the highway.
$42 billion – Total venture dollars invested into AI-related startups in Q4 of 2024, a record (and ~3.5x the amount invested in Q4 2023). (Crunchbase News)
$46 billion – Total data center-related spending by Microsoft from January through August 2024. (Voroni)
95% – The percentage growth in “Administrative Staff” in US Public Schools since 2000, compared to 10% in teachers, and 5% in students. (America)
~50% – The portion of FEMA’s disaster budget that was spent in the first 8 days of FY25. (Politico)
78% – The percentage of NVIDIA employees who are now millionaires. (Special Situations Research)
December 2024
3 out of 5 – Of the world's largest companies received Series A funding from Sequoia. (Patrick Collison)
#1 – Palantir’s ranking by market cap among defense companies, ahead of Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing (and more than General Dynamics + Northrup Grumman combined) (Katherine Boyle)
+1,700% – The percentage change since 2002 in the portion of U.S. high school seniors taking the ACT who received perfect scores (Harper’s)
21x greater – The risk of developing schizophrenia after an emergency department visit for hallucinogen use, compared to those without such visits. (JAMA)
~4.5 million – The number of deaths caused by water-related diseases this year (StatsPanda)
91% – The percentage of 16 to 24-year-olds in the US who have purchased creator-founded products and services. (Billion Dollar Boy)
$77 billion – The global market size for the weight-loss drug market by 2030 according to Morgan Stanley, up from $15 billion in 2024. (Visual Capitalist)
>1.1 million – The number of international students at U.S. colleges in the 2023-24 academic year, an all-time high. (Higher Ed Dive)
$191 billion – The amount fraudsters cost the American taxpayer by taking advantage of the federal government’s unemployment system and exploiting individuals’ personally identifiable information during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Committee on Oversight and Accountability)
2.7% – Argentina’s inflation rate for the month of October, down from 25.5% when Javier Milei took office in December 2023. (Charlie Bilello)
November 2024
112 – The number of startups founded by SpaceX alumni (Alumni Founders by Live Data Technologies)
$3 billion – The amount of venture funding invested into defense tech start-ups in 2024, compared to $0.3 billion in 2019 (Crunchbase)
42% – The percentage of U.S. public school teachers who say that the stress and disappointment of their jobs are “worth it”, compared to 72% in 2018 (RAND)
39,000,000 – The minimum number of deaths that antibiotic resistance is projected to cause globally by 2050 (Harper’s)
88% – the percentage of Salvadorans who say that it is safe to walk alone at night in their neighborhood, compared to 72% of Americans (Gallup)
40 – The number of Nvidia employees who report directly to Co-Founder & CEO Jensen Huang. (Tom’s Hardware)
50 – The number of times the S&P 500 has closed at an all-time high so far this year. (The Kobeissi Letter)
~$250 million – The amount of money the University of Michigan has poured into D.E.I. since 2016. (New York Times)
34 years old – The median audience age for podcasts in 2024, compared to 70 years old for cable news. (No Mercy / No Malice)
>200,000 – The number of small businesses listed for sale each year, only 30% of which find a buyer. (Teamshares)
87 – The number of “megadeals” ($100 million-or-more rounds raised by U.S.-based startups) YTD in the Biotech/Healthcare category, compared to 26 in Artificial Intelligence. (Crunchbase News)
$26.3 billion – NVIDIA’s data center revenue in Q2 2024, up from $4.3 billion in Q1 2023. (FinChat)
>2x – The amount learned by students who were given access to an AI tutor compared to those who had in-class instruction, according to a study by two Harvard lecturers of 194 Physical Sciences 2 students. (The Harvard Gazette)
40.1% – The percentage of people in the US ages 18 and older who have trust in physicians and hospitals in 2024, down from 71.5% in April 2020. (JAMA)
19,000,000 tons – The amount of lithium that researchers estimate may be contained in Arkansas’ Smackover Formation region, more than enough to meet projected global demand in 2030. (Utility Dive)
October 2024
62% – The YoY uptick in 2023 in people starting new jobs as founders after being laid off from a Big Tech company (Live Data Technologies)
12% – The percentage of all of U.S. electric demand that will be made up by data centers in 2030, up ~4x from today (Power Engineering)
13.2% – The YoY gain in MBA applications for 2024, after trending negative four out of the past 5 years (Fortune)
15 years – The estimated amount of time until four essential drugs (amoxicillin, cefalexin, ciprofloxacin, and cloxacillin) are likely to be lost to resistance and require replacement (Center for Global Development)
42 years – The average age of operational U.S. commercial nuclear power reactors (U.S. Energy Information Administration)
1.05 million – The number of businesses in the United States that were less than 1 year old as of 2023 (Statista)
48% – The percentage of Americans who believe that politeness matters when interacting with AI (Lifewire)
59% – The percentage of 2024 college graduates who worry about covering basic expenses (Handshake)
6 years – The amount of time before the estimated ratio of pets to children under the age of 4 in China reaches 2:1 (Harper’s)
8.7% – The percentage year-over-year increase in the costs of at-home care for ill and elderly people (BLS)
65% – The percentage of Americans who had a “Great deal/Quite a lot” of confidence in Small Business in 2023, contrasting with a record-low 14% for Big Business. (Gallup)
77.8% – The percentage of programmers who believe AI code generators will improve code quality. (9vc9)
30% – The percentage of microschool founders who are neither currently nor formerly certified educators. (The 74 Million)
8 – The US technology IPO count for 2022 & 2023, compared to 229 for 2020 & 2021. (Coatue)
8 in 10 – The portion of people on Earth who will live in Africa and Asia by 2100. (Washington Post)
20 – The number of US startups that received a valuation of $1 billion or more in H2 2023, compared to 181 in H2 2021. (Carta)
10.1% – The percentage of Palantir alumni who are now in a founder role. (Live Data Technologies)
#251 out of 251 – Harvard’s placement (dead-last) in the 2025 College Free Speech Rankings. (FIRE)
68.5% – The percentage increase in daily hours spent gaming by men ages 15-24 from 2019-2022. (Paul Graham)
11 – The number of states that include girl’s flag football as a varsity sport. (Athletic Business)
September 2024
$14.8 million – The median pre-money valuation for seed rounds in Q2 2024, just under the all-time high of $15.0 million in Q2 2022. (Carta)
2,500 – The number of airplanes Starlink has under contract (CNBC)
43% – The percentage of U.S. adults who don’t know what a 401(k) is (Talker)
0 – The number of people connected to the Internet 1,049 days after the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was signed, which provided $42.45 billion to provide broadband access to unserved communities, particularly those in rural areas. (Brendan Carr)
>3,000 – The number of current and former Home Depot employees who started “pushing carts back into the store from the parking lot” who are now millionaires. (Forbes)
$3 billion – the exit achieved by René Rechtman’s Moonbug Entertainment in less than three years raising $145 million to buy and grow children’s shows CocoMelon, Blippi, and Little Baby Bum. (Private Equity Guy)
16% – current E-commerce retail sales as a % of total sales, approaching its pandemic high (16.4%) set in Q2 of 2022. (Koyfin)
>40 million – The number of U.S. learners who have started college but never finished. (National Student Clearing House Research Center)
1 in 9 – the fraction of children in the U.S., between the ages of 3 and 17, who have been diagnosed with ADHD. (NPR)
80% – the percentage of all ship-to-shore cranes in the United States that are made by just one company: China’s state-owned manufacturing and engineering firm ZPMC. (Art of Procurement)
Nearly 200,000 – The number of businesses in the US that are worth between $10 million and $100 million (Financial Times)
58:2 – The ratio of employee arrivals (hires) to departures at Anthropic over the past 8 weeks (Live Data Technologies)
14,448 – The number of non-teaching employees at Stanford University in 2018, compared to 7,800 undergraduate students (Stanford Review)
$10 billion – The total profits from Vinod Khosla’s VC investments between 1988 and 1998, which included a 2,500x return on his investment in Juniper Networks (Mario Gabrielle /The Generalist)
Nearly 1/3 – the fraction of all startup capital that came from family offices in 2022 (PwC)
August 2024
6 out of the past 10 - the fraction of U.S. Presidents who had no significant business experience before taking office. (Dash Media)
97.5% – the percentage reduction in cost per 1,000 tokens for GPT-4o vs. GPT-3.5 (from $0.0200 to $0.0005) in just 1.5 years. (Sarah Tavel)
30 cents – the amount of wealth held by families headed by someone with some college education (but no four-year degree) for every $1 of wealth held by families headed by a four-year college graduate. (St. Louis Fed)
$2.58 billion – the proposed amount of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) backpay that would be paid to 400,000 eligible athletes who competed in NCAA Division I sports from 2016 to 2024, as part of the House vs. NCAA lawsuit. (Sports Illustrated)
23% – the percentage of U.S. adults who have chosen not to call an ambulance during a medical emergency due to the potential cost (YouGov)
71% – the percentage of Gen Zers who say they have taken on a side hustle in the past 12 months, along with 68% of millennials (Marketwatch)
80% – The percentage of all private R&D that is conducted by U.S. venture-backed companies (NVCA)
97% – The percentage of kindergarten and pre-school teachers who are female (Forbes)
40% – the percentage of major infrastructure projects in the Inflation Reduction Act that have been delayed or paused indefinitely (Financial Times)
195% – the percentage increase in the supply of rental housing in Buenos Aires since President Javier Millei's repeal of rent control laws took effect on December 29 (Newsweek)
5,481,437 – The number of new businesses started in the US in 2023, a record (Commerce Institute)
90% – The percentage of commercial drones in the United States that are Chinese-made (Noah Smith)
7.2 million – The number of Americans over 50 who hold student debt (Inside Higher Ed)
89% – The percentage of transplant recipients who reported personality changes after undergoing transplant surgery (MDPI)
200,000 – The number of New York households being added to the waitlist for the state’s Section 8 Voucher program after 600,000 households applied during a 1-week window in June (Gothamist)
65% – the percentage of small businesses in the US that are profitable. (Hubspot)
32% – The portion of global R&D expenditure that comes from the U.S., more than any other country. (American Association for the Advancement of Science)
270,000 – the number of teaching posts currently filled by underqualified teachers in the U.S. (Teachers of Tomorrow)
>180 zettabytes – The amount of data the world will have produced by 2025. (Grepsr)
52% – The percentage of bachelor’s degree holders who are unemployed a year after graduation (Strada Education Foundation)
July 2024
12 million – the estimated number of businesses that will be sold in the United States in the next 10-15 years (Score)
16 minutes – the amount of time between Joe Biden’s resignation announcement on X (which has 425 million views) and the first reporting on the event by a legacy media company (Linda Yaccarino)
32% – the percentage of Americans who report feeling “little or no confidence” in higher education. In 2015, that number was 10%. (Lumina Foundation)
50% – the percentage of advanced STEM degree holders working in the US defense industrial base that are foreign-born (IFP)
$8,435 – the average annual health premium for single-employee coverage in the United States in 2024, compared to $2,471 in 2000 (Statista)
50% – the percentage of 16 to 25-year-olds who want to start their own businesses (Samsung / Morning Consult)
$23 billion – the price of Google’s potential acquisition of Wiz, an AI cybersecurity company founded less than 5 years ago (Fortune)
17% – the estimated percentage of Johns Hopkins University’s funding in the past decade that came from tuition and fees, compared to 19% from the Department of Defense (Harper’s)
48 years – the amount of time since the US has had a presidential election without a Biden, Clinton, or Bush (Bruce Mehlman on X)
70% – the percentage of global investment in longevity clinics that happens in the U.S. (WSJ)
June 2024
#1 – Nevada’s national ranking in business creation rate by state (U.S. News)
700 – the number of full-time customer service agents' workload handled by Klarna's AI assistant, which processed 2.3 million conversations over the past year (Forbes)
1.6 out of 5 – the average K-12 teacher “AI Comfort Level” (Frontline Education)
53% – percentage of U.S. adults (who have heard of Ozempic, Wegovy and other similar drugs) who say they are “good options” for weight loss for people with obesity or a weight-related health condition, compared to only 12% who say they are “good options” for people who want to lose weight but do not have a weight-related health condition (Pew Research)
1.5 billion – number of pounds of clothing discarded by Americans each year (Washington Post)
1 in 10 – of all small businesses in the US are in the state of Texas (USA Today)
$160 billion – what SoftBank's NVIDIA shares would be worth today if it still held them instead of selling its entire position for $3.6 billion in 2019 (Fortune)
2 per month – the rate at which private colleges are closing nationwide (AP)
100 years - the amount of time for which the energy in U.S. nuclear waste could power the entire country with clean energy (CNBC)
0.6 milliseconds - the latency per prompt token for on-device inference on iPhone 15 Pro. (Apple Machine Learning Research)
$600-700 million – the amount of revenue Mr. Beast brings in annually (TIME)
97% – The share of real estate investors, developers and operators who plan to increase their investment in data centers this year (CBRE)
50% – The percentage of Americans with low financial literacy who say they “don’t have sufficient savings to cover 1 month’s living expenses, compared to 10% of those with high financial literacy (Global Financial Literacy Center)
$32 million – the total amount that the island nation of Anguilla earned in 2023 from .ai web domain registrations, more than 10% of its GDP (The New York Times)
$11,600 – the average cost of childcare per year in the United States (Scott Galloway)
111 - the number of colleges in the US that offer a major in Entrepreneurship (College Vine)
53% – the percentage of people in the USA who have heard of OpenAI/ChatGPT (Reuters)
142 million – number of registered learners on Coursera (Coursera)
23rd – Rank of the United States among countries in terms of happiness in 2024, compared to 15th in 2023 (World Happiness Report)
2/3 – the portion of Americans who say they are worried about their memory (Harper’s)
May 2024
$312 billion - the amount of dry powder amassed by US VC Funds as of Q1 2024 (Pitchbook)
$447 billion – the total amount of investment in the semiconductor industry that has been announced in 83 separate projects across 25 states since the passing of the CHIPS Act in 2022 (Financial Times)
Nearly 5 billion – number of free or reduced-price school lunches served to over 30 million public school students during fiscal year 2022. (USA Facts)
$230 Billion – total assets held in Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) as of the end of 2022 (Ohio State News)
78% – the percentage of AI users who are bringing their own tools to work (Microsoft)
35,315 – number of AI patents granted in China in 2022, compared to 12,077 in the US (Visual Capitalist)
#3 – Apple Pay (507m users) is the 3rd most popular digital wallet in the world, behind Chinese platforms WeChat Pay (900m users) and AliPay (1.3b users) (Genuine Impact - Charting Finance, Investing & Tech)
32% – rate of chronic absenteeism in the country’s poorest school districts in 2023, a 68% uptick compared to 2018. (New York Times)
2x – the number of students enrolled in Community Colleges (10.2 million) vs. Private Colleges (5.1 million) in the US as of 2021 data (Ed.gov, Statista)
$100T – The amount of wealth of generational wealth set to be handed down to the younger generation over the next 25 years (Pitchbook)
April 2024
16% – Share of US home listings that are “affordable” on a median income, down from 45% in 2020 (Visual Capitalist)
70% - percentage of Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 batch that were AI startups, up from 32% in YC W23 (Drake Dukes)
2 years – amount of time before AI businesses run out of harvestable “high quality-data” (Wikipedia entries, scientific papers, etc.) on the internet (Morning Brew)
7% – percentage of US students who are “high performers” in math (Hechinger Report)
$101 million – size of the award the XPRIZE will give to any team that can restore 20 years worth of muscle, brain, and immune function in older adults (MIT Technology Review)
15% - increase in New founders in Q1 2024 vs Q1 2023 (Live Data Technologies /Human Capitalist)
At least 3 - High-level Meta AI employees that have departed the company in the past several weeks to “strike it out on their own” (Yahoo! Finance)
47% – portion of the world’s top AI researchers that earned undergraduate degrees in China (NYT)
25% – percent of Gen Z that said they’ll need a therapist to deal with tax filing stress (CNBC)
21,300 – number of 5+ unit apartment buildings granted in Austin in 2023, more than LA and SF combined (CoStar)
March 2024
61% – percentage of teen girls who have thought about starting a business, 7% more than teen boys (Alaska Business)
18.4% – average IPO pop from 1980 through 2020 (Jay Ritter)
63% – the percentage of US parents who are dissatisfied with the quality of K-12 education (Gallup)
84% – the percentage of Americans who believe that businesses have a responsibility to bring social change on important issues (CSR)
57% – the percentage share of the top 35 companies in the Fortune 500 that were founded by either immigrants or children of immigrants (Brookings)
249% – increase in aggregate revenue from AI companies on Stripe (Stripe)
0 – public SaaS companies expected to grow faster than 40% over the next 12 months (Gokul Rajaram)
60% – percentage of employers who will require corporate etiquette classes for staff this year (Morning Brew)
23% – startup employees hired in 2022 who were gone before their 1-year work anniversary, up 77% since 2018 (Peter Walker)
25% - increase since 2018 in the portion of American fifteen-year-olds who are not proficient in math (Harper’s)
58% – unicorns that don’t have a founder with a Computer Science degree (Forbes)
96% – Chinese children who believe that humans will eventually live in outer space or on another planet (CNBC)
67 – schools in Illinois where not a single child is proficient in math (Wirepoints)
47% – Americans who are “very satisfied” with their personal life, down from 65% in 2020 (Gallup)
87% – American businesses that are family-owned or controlled (Fortune)
55% – percent of Americans who work for an SMB (Jeff Richards)
31% – percent of 2023 US venture capital that went to companies in the Bay Area (Peter Walker)
$38,000 – spending per K-12 student in NYC in 2024 (Chalkbeat)
8 in 10 – Gen Z and millennials who expect to shape the future through their work (Engage for Good)
6X – high achieving students from low-income families are 6 times less likely to enroll in highly selective universities compared to high-achieving students from high-income families (Inside Higher Ed)
February 2024
60% – Unicorn founders who were not first-time founders (Marker)
45% – 18-34 year olds who would want to live on Mars in a colony (YouGov)
20% – OpenAI’s engineering staff who either attended Stanford or Berkeley (The Economist)
63% – ESG professionals who changed jobs in 2023 left the function (WSJ)
84% – Americans who believe that “before America can truly be united, we need to give equal opportunity to the have’s and have not’s” (Carr Center)
>5x – increase in Stripe Atlas incorporations in January 2024 vs. January 2019 (Patrick Collison)
1 million – patents granted in the U.S. in 2023, an all-time record high (USPTO)
250,000 – students enrolled in AI and machine learning university courses in 2023, doubled since 2020 (HolonIQ)
88% – percent of countries that have set net-zero emissions targets (UN)
17% – percent of Americans who say that the American dream is “out of reach” for their family (Pew)
47% – percent of new business owners that were women in 2022, up from 29% in 2019 (CNBC)
350M – Roblox Monthly Active Users, more than the Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation platforms combined (Matthew Ball)
43% – percent of DC high school freshmen who have missed at least 21 days of school (John Arnold)
86% – percentage of US investors who believe companies frequently overstate or exaggerate’ their ESG progress when disclosing results (Governance Intelligence)
55% – percent of Ivy League graduates believe that the U.S. "provides too much individual freedom" compared with just 16% of ordinary U.S. voters (Committee to Unleash Prosperity)
January 2024
40% – the percentage of the 532 U.S. unicorns trading at valuations below $1 billion in the secondary markets (Cowboy Ventures)
199 million – number of hot dog & soda combos sold in 2023 (Quartr)
31% – the percentage of Americans with graduate degrees who think they will always live paycheck to paycheck (Harper’s)
23% – amount of future lifetime earnings that American workers are willing to give up to have a job that was always meaningful (HBR)
68% – percentage of Americans who think the affirmative action decision in higher education is “mostly a good thing” (The Hill)
30% – percent of IPOs over the past five years that were founder-led companies (Schroders)
$4.6B – inflows into Bitcoin ETFs on first day of trading (Reuters)
$29,307 – spending per student at Chicago Public Schools (Wirepoints)
80% – percent of Gen Z and millennial workers that are stressed out (Fortune)
10.5% – outperformance of woman-owned hedge funds over the last 16 years (BlackRock)
79% – GDP in India that comes from family firms (The Economist)
38% – Global population that still hasn't used the internet (Zippia)
67% – Americans aged 18-24 agree that "Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors” (Harris Poll)
25% – Americans aged 40 who have never been married, up from 6% in 1980 (Pew)
38% – increase in revenue for companies with higher diversity vs. lower diversity in management (BCG)
December 2023
57% – GenZers who said they would like to become an influencer if given the chance (CNBC)
50,000 – people who have elected to insert a microchip into their body to serve as their new swipe key or credit card (The Hill)
62% – percent of Chicagoans who support school choice (Illinois Policy)
44% – increase in ESG fund outflows vs. non-ESG fund outflows (IR Magazine)
78% – percentage of Americans who agree that “We should aim for equality of opportunities, not equality of outcomes.” (SPN)
44% – percent of US economic activity that comes from small businesses (SBA)
68% – percent of drivers who are afraid of fully autonomous vehicles (AAA)
40% – percent of students who are distracted due to their own or someone else’s digital device during class (AFR)
40% – increase in workforce retention from purpose-driven companies (Cigna)
94% – percent of new jobs added in 2021 by members of the S&P Index that went to people of color (WaPo)
47% – decrease in new founder roles in 2023 vs. five-year average
( Human Capitalist )
62% – percent of millennials who say they’re willing to pay $7 for a daily coffee because of the joy it brings (Forbes)
38% – percent of all AP test takers who scored a 1 or 2 on exams (Business Insider)
59% – percent of Americans believe that money can buy happiness (Empower)
36% – Americans who believe the American Dream still holds true (WSJ)
November 2023
50% – percent of Gen Z that wants to start their own business (CNBC)
<4% – percent of the total US equity market that are small caps (Jefferies)
6% – Black ACT test takers rated ready for college-level courses in English, Math, Science, and Reading (JBHE)
48% – Gen Z and Millennials that are likely to purchase an electric vehicle (Pew)
36% –New Yorkers that are foreign-born (Rockefeller Institute)
51% – growth of homeschooling in the US over the past 6 years (Washington Post)
+27% – difference in user base between Pinterest (482 million) and Twitter (368 million) (Chartr)
$7B – difference in net worth between Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer (Pythia Capital)
75% – percent of women under the age of 30 that aspire to become senior leaders (McKinsey)
85% – percent of Gen Z who expects they’ll have to make sacrifices in their own lives because of global climate change (Pew Research)
October 2023
1,090 – average days of runway between Series B to Series C US venture rounds (Carta)
138% – Argentina’s annual inflation in September (Barron’s)
79% – percent of Black Americans who support school vouchers (WPDE)
40% – power increase of the average solar panel over the past decade (Science Is Strategic)
16 million – American families with wealth exceeding $1 million, up from 9.8 million families in 2019 (WSJ)
53% – increase in new business applications in the South since 2019 (Bloomberg)
21% – increase in cancer survival rate from the 1970s to 2010s (CNN)
71% – percent of Americans who support School Choice (AFC)
1.1 billion – number of middle class Africans by 2060 (Brookings)
78% – percent of global middle class consumption from Asia by 2050 (Futures Platform)
31% – 2023 Series D rounds that have been down rounds (Carta)
97.8% – decrease in OpenSea monthly NFT volume from January 2022 to August 2023 (BeInCrypto)
36% – US adults who are satisfied with K-12 Education (Axios)
8% – US adults with no close friends (Pew Research)
18% – population that is 65 or older, the highest on record since 1920 (Forerunner Ventures)
$14.4M – median pre-money valuation for seed stage startups in Q3 2023 (Carta)
77% – Gen Z members that believe technology makes them feel more control of their finances (Harris Poll)
41% – young adults who think a college degree is very important (Unusual Whales)
74% – Gen Z women that agree they “anticipate redefining my career as they grow as a person” (Harris Poll)
79% – percentage of Americans who favor maximum age limits for elected officials (Pew)
31% – increase in weekly business applications since 2019 (Hubspot)
33% – decrease in US cancer death rate since 1991 (NIH)
53% – US student loan borrowers who owe less than $20k (Emma Camp)
80% – Americans who experienced at least one travel-related problem in the first half of 2023 (McKinsey)
8.5 years – difference in life expectancy between Americans with and without a Bachelor’s degree (Brookings)
September 2023
26% – decrease in average equity package for new startup hires since November 2022 (Peter Walker)
57% – Americans who favor more nuclear power plants to generate electricity (Pew)
77% – school parents who support Education Savings Accounts (EdChoice)
78% – US consumers that say a sustainable lifestyle is important to them (McKinsey)
68% – global smartphone penetration rate as of 2022 (Statista)
17% – percent of US funds that raised their first fund that managed to raise a fourth fund (Beezer Clarkson)
33% – percent of sales reps that hit their quotas in H1 2023 (Lightspeed)
$29,726 – Norway’s public spending per child on early childhood care (NYT)
530% – Starlink’s revenue increase over the past year (WSJ)
$228 million – annual cost of employee disengagement and attrition for a median-size S&P 500 Company (McKinsey)
53% – YC companies that raise a Series A (Garry Tan)
94% – decrease in solar panel cost since 1989 (Rocket Solar)
$38,000 – NYC spending per student in FY2024 (Chalkbeat)
17% – US adults who regularly attend religious services in person and watch them online (Pew Research)
61% – Americans that say there is such a thing as the American Dream (YouGov)
August 2023
1 – number of new unicorns in India so far in 2023 (Axios)
1.1% – percent of companies backed by VenCap from 1986 –2018 that returned the fund (David Clark)
125,000 – number of microschools that exist in the USA (WSJ)
#1 – “Sad” is the most searched for word among Gen Z on Spotify (Spotify)
62% – percent of new founders in 2023 that live in one of 25 cities (LiveData)
24 – number of IPOs in the last 2 years with >50% gain (Sam Lessin)
$6.7M – average sales per Chick-fil-A store (Chartr)
43% – percent of full-time college students that work while enrolled in college (Fortune)
80% – percent of school-aged Afghan girls that are out of school (UNESCO)
15 – number of billionaires in the US 40 years ago (Forbes)
20% – percent of VC rounds in Q2 2023 that were down rounds (Carta)
20% – decrease in risk of heart attacks and strokes for overweight and obese adults by Ozempic(Novo Nordisk)
~67% – percent of Gen Z that can’t read cursive (NPR)
$5.2B – daily increase in US debt over the next 10 years (The Kobeissi Letter)
51% – currently employed workers say they are watching for or actively seeking a new job (Gallup)
22% – percent of the top product-led startups growing at 75% or more this year, down from 49% of product-led startups two years ago (Zach DeWitt)
5.3% – startups on AngelList that raised a round or exited in 2Q23, the lowest rate ever observed (AngelList)
26.1% – journalists at the NYT or WSJ who attended an Ivy+ College (Opportunity Insights)
27% – increase in job postings from 2021-2022 in electrification and renewables (McKinsey)
13 – new female Fortune 500 CEOs in 2022 (Fortune)
July 2023
2.4 – number of significant software companies ($10B+ US public / private software companies) founded per year from 2000 to 2017 (Zach DeWitt)
73% – fewer collisions with a meaningful risk of injury for a Cruise taxi than the typical human ride-hail driver in San Francisco in their first million driverless miles (MIT Technology Review)
$587,400 – average lifetime earnings increase for a US college-educated man vs. a high-school educated man (The Economist)
91% – Hinge singles who would prefer to date someone who goes to therapy (Hinge)
42% – Americans who believe they are on their way to achieving the American Dream (The Jerusalem Post)
42% – unicorns started by second-time founders (Medium)
$4 – value of an NFT of Jack Dorsey’s first tweet bought for $2.9M (Stocktwits)
$38,000 – spending per pupil at NYC public schools (Larry Summers)
79% – percent of Gen Z that supports nuclear energy (ANS)
91% – percent of Coursera learners in developing countries who report career benefits (Coursera)
41.9 – average age of an entrepreneur (The Generalist)
$800 Billion – decrease in the value of office buildings in major cities from remote work (Bloomberg)
31% – US adults 55 and older with a great deal of confidence in higher education (Gallup)
36% – percent of podcast listeners who have tried out of a lifestyle change because of a podcast (Pew Research)
96.5% – growth of labor force aged 75 years and older over the next decade (BLS)
2 minutes and 24 seconds – average time spent on a pitch deck by investors (Source)
50% – percent of unicorns in 2023 that are AI startups (Source)
11 – states with education savings accounts (ESA) programs (Source)
14% – percent of Gen Z that wants to work for the government (Source)
74% – percent of Americans that think public colleges and universities should not be able to use race as a factor in college admissions (Source)
June 2023
54% – percent of female CEOs that played college sports (Source)
150 million – number of people who have sent messages to My AI (Source)
34% – percent of new undergraduates at America’s top 35 universities that went to private school (Source)
24% – increase in number of cancer survivors by 2032 (Source)
$59 billion – decrease in charitable giving from 2022 vs. 2021 (Source)
120 – number of videos that Mr. Beast uploaded to YouTube before breaking 1,000 subscribers (Source)
25x – increase in memory (tokens) of Generative AI models from ChatGPT (Nov 2022) to Anthropic - Claude (May 2023) (Source)
33% – US adults that approve of colleges considering race and ethnicity to increase diversity at schools (Source)
$26,320 – cost of a new Tesla Model 3WD in Vermont (Source)
45% – percent of recruiters on LinkedIn that now search for candidates using skills data (Source)
51 – public companies that sustained 20%+ annual growth since 2010 off a revenue base of at least $100 million (Source)
80% – percent of the world’s data that resides behind firewalls, not on the public web (Source)
60% – percent of US working families that spend 20% of their income on daycare (Source)
29% – decrease since 2009 of Canadian women aged 15-30 reporting excellent or very good mental health (Source)
17% – decrease in New York’s personal income tax revenue since 2019 (Source)
May 2023
$25 billion – VC investment in San Francisco in Q1 2023, 2x more than the next nine US metro areas (Source)
71% – Americans that would be interested in buying or leasing an electric vehicle (Source)
89% – college students that have used ChatGPT for Homework (Source)
64% – people that struggle with having the time and energy to do their job (Source)
20.4% – China’s record-high youth unemployment rate (Source)
5% – percent of GDP that Israel invests in R&D, twice the OECD average (Source)
74% – China’s share of the world’s battery production by gigawatt-hours (Source)
850 – number of school districts that have adopted 4-day school weeks (Source)
77% – percent of AI voice scam victims that lose money (Source)
17% – percent of BART riders who say they feel safe on the trains (Source)
0.96% – median equity grant for the first hire at a startup in 2022 (Source)
$15.3 billion – China’s total investment in quantum technology to date (Source)
13% – percent of the nation’s eighth graders that were proficient in U.S. history last year (Source)
90% – percent of consumers willing to spend an extra 10% or more for sustainable products, up from just 34% of consumers two years ago (Source)
40% – percent of crony-capitalist wealth that derives from autocratic countries (Source)
April 2023
74% – decrease in Series C funding from Q1 2022 to Q1 2023 (Source)
6% – percent of active startups on AngelList that raised a round or exited in 1Q23, the lowest rate ever recorded in their dataset (Source)
80% – percent of US colleges that no longer rely on the SAT/ACT for admissions (Source)
3.8 billion – number of people using at least one Meta app on a monthly basis (Source)
$100,500 – median household income for Indian-Americans (Source)
46% – percent of people that are open to replacing their private vehicles with other modes of transport in the coming decade (Source)
11.5% – enrollment increase in mechanic and repair trade programs from 2021 to 2022 (Source)
50x – decrease in cost per ton lifting capabilities from SpaceX Starship (Source)
40% — percent of software engineers working in the US that are born outside of the US (Source)
86% — percent of YC Founders that lived in SF during the W23 batch, up from 53% in the last batch (Source)
98% — percent of all dollars invested in ARKK since 10/31/2014 inception losing money (Source)
10% – percent of black high school seniors rated as college ready by the ACT (Source)
90% – percent of Americans that live within 10 miles of a Walmart (Source)
2.1% – percent of US VC funding that went to startups with all-female founding teams in Q1 2023 (Source)
86% — percent of tech unicorns that have grown headcount in the last 12 months (Source)
$150 million — amount of secondaries sold by Hopin CEO Johnny Boufarhat in 2021, more than the lifetime revenue of the company without taking acquisitions into account (Source)
58% – percent of parents that think political views have no place in public education (Source)
28% – growth in tax revenues over the past 5 years in Washington, adjusted for inflation and population growth (Source)
66% – percent of Americans that see colleges as stuck in the past, not meeting the needs of today’s students (Source)
March 2023
59% — percent of Founders that think the fall of SVB is going to make the startup fundraising environment tougher (Source)
150 million — number of Americans on TikTok, up 50 million since 2020 (Source)
12:00 AM - 1:00 AM – most popular time to take classes on edX around the world (Source)
72% –percent of Americans who are living paycheck-to-paycheck that could benefit from early-wage access (Source)
55% – percent of heterosexual couples that meet online, up from 37% in 2017 (Source)
$25,000 — value of a startup in 24 hours created by HustleGPT, an entrepreneurial AI (Source)
$50,000— amount the CEO of Match Group has personally spent on Clash of Clans in the last 3 months (Source)
$6,065 – average annual tuition of more than 200 New York City private schools (Source)
39% – amount of Americans who suffered from a sleep disorder in the last 12 months (Source)
$36,000 – amount that a $100,000 salary feels like in New York City (Source)
8% — percent of venture capitalists that are women (Source)
90%— reduction in cost for ChatGPT since December (Source)
40% — percent of liberal professors that are afraid of losing their jobs over a misunderstanding (Source)
481,831 – amount of Arizona families who can’t afford a $500k house, but could afford a $300k house (Source)
40-60% – US office occupancy versus pre-pandemic levels, compared to 70-90% in Europe and 80-110% in Asia (Source)
February 2023
80 — new startups formed per day in India (Source)
80%— percent of Starbucks orders that are customized (Source)
11.9 Million — number of women in the US workforce with advanced degrees currently in work (Source)
1 million — number of US immigrants in 2022, the first year over 1 million since 2017 (Source)
60% — percent of Americans under 25 that have completed a purchase on a social media site (Source)
80% — amount of early-stage companies that have fewer than 12 months of runway (Source)
1% — percent of US GDP from VC investment; VC-backed companies account for 57% of total market cap and 82% of R&D Spend (Source)
72% — percent of parents that support school choice, including 68% of Democrats, 82% of Republicans, and 67% of Independents (Source)
85 million — estimated shortage of tech workers by 2030 (Source)
11% — nominal GDP growth in Vietnam the next 5 years (Source)
January 2023
1.7 million — new business applications in the US in 2022, up 28% from pre-pandemic levels (Axios)
12,000 — articles written about Generative AI, up from 152 in June (Eleanor Hawkins / Axios)
70% — percent of people that have career regret (Source)
6.3% — decrease in San Fransisco’s population from 2019 – 2021, a decline larger than any two-year period in Detroit’s history (Source)
37% — percent of the world that has never been online (Source)
35 million — amount of Americans with some college but no degree (Source)
27.7 million — number of software engineers worldwide (Source)
9 — states where TikTok has been banned on college campuses (Source)
84% — percent of Americans that believe businesses have a responsibility to bring social change on important issues (Source)
44% — jump in average share price within a year of going public for US companies with diverse board members (Source)
0.05% — amount of startups that get VC funding (Source)
2x — amount of time India is spending in upskilling vs. the rest of the world (Source)
14x — increase since 1910 in the percent of the U.S. population aged 25 or older with a bachelor’s degree (Source)
71% — percent of surveyed founders who stated that a big motivator to start a business is the desire to make a difference in the world (Source)
$6.7 billion — 2022 venture investment in aerospace and defense tech companies, up 3x since 2019 (Source)
