π§βππ Issue #107: The Need For Liberal Arts
The importance of a liberal arts background for startup founders in today's era of innovation, and the Claremont startups who closed out the year strong.
π¬ Welcome to issue #107 ofΒ Between the Lines
Good morning & happy Thursday. This will be our last issue of BTL in 2023, but we hope you all have a lovely holiday season. See you in 2024! π
Before all the holiday festivities start, we wanted to leave you with one last issue that dives into how a background in liberal arts + humanities can set startup founders apart in this new era of innovation. The article sums up one of the many reasons we started StoryHouse Venturesβ¦..itβs a Claremont world out there. π
~ Josh, Miles, Pat
π’ π₯ Community Voices: The Need For Liberal Arts In The New Era Of Startups
Author: Evan Armstrong
Want to Build? Technical Excellence Wonβt Be Enough.
This new era of startups requires a founder baptized in the humanities
βTechnology alone is not enoughβitβs technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.β
Iβve been reflecting on this quote from Steve Jobs, which he said during the unveiling of the iPad 2 in 2011, a lot lately. The explosion in AI tools is rapidly decreasing how much it costs to create new technology. Many of the simple market opportunities, the easy and obvious things, are either dominated by pseudo-monopolies, like Google, or are blood baths filled with thousands of minnows (see SaaS). Weβve had a decade of good times and abundant capital, with most founders locked in a cage match over opportunities that have been market-mapped and analyzed to death. Now, the bottom has fallen out. More than 3,200 startups and $27.2 billion in venture capital are gone. All of this put together makes for one of the most confusing times in the history of the technology industry. Sprinkle in a lack of clarity on whether VR, AI, or crypto will be the next big thing, and itβs a mess. Founders donβt know what to build, investors donβt know what to fund, and to some extent, consumers donβt know what they want.Β
We are in an age of noise.Β
The frameworks that got us here, of jobs-to-be-done or product-market fit, will be insufficient going forward. For founders to have extraordinary outcomes, they will have to find alpha in markets that arenβt easily understood.Β
Which is to say, technology alone wonβt be enough. The other essential ingredient will be taste. Technology without taste is a melody without a rhythm. To operate well, to build winning companies and enduring careers, you have to clear a bar that is beyond technical excellence. It requires an intuitive grasp of human need. And building products for these needs demands not just technical excellence but superior tasteβ¦β¦
The problem you solve for customers is increasingly one they canβt even articulate for themselves. The ones that are easy to understand have already been built and funded over the last 20 years. Building something of true excellence will require a hungrier engagement with the worldβand that will have to start with developing superior taste.
Why consuming helps building
Look at the best technology products. Their aesthetic and features vary widely, but regardless of what they do, something ignites customersβ souls. Beyond simple utility, the unique mix of look, feel, and benefit is otherworldly. Recently, for me, it was ChatGPT. I also have fond memories of the first time I used an iPod or discovered a community on Reddit. I donβt think you can make something of this resonance with Gantt charts and spreadsheets. It requires, as Eliot would say, the historical sense. It requires βa sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal.β
The humanities matter for founders because these subjects build an intuitive grasp of the worldβ¦β¦
Why should founders care deeply about the humanities? Because they fine-tune your sense for customersβ emotions, andβif youβll excuse me for waxing spiritualβthey allow you to be in touch with a divine part of yourself that is responsible for creation.Β
So, how can you pick what to engage with? The answer is more complicated than you might think. For most of human history, content was created linearly: you studied the work that came before you, then created something in response to what you saw and felt. The internet changes that.Β
Now is the greatest time in history to consume
Because distribution is unlimited and content creation is close to free, the conversation between works of creation is more of a smushed-together ball of different colors of Play-Doh than a linear progression. In contrast to Eliot arguing that you should know the journey of literature from Homer to Shakespeare to Stephen King, historical works are as popular as newer ones. Culture shifts from a timeline into a snake eating its own tail. That means your startup can be inspired by an innumerable number of thingsβvideos, music, books, mashups of the three, all versions of past and present influencing the future you are trying to make. It also means that the world into which your product is born is far more complicated than it was for a startup that was founded even five years ago.
The natural question is how to find the βgood stuffβ to consumeβ¦β¦
Ironically, while the internet changes the form factor of everything and makes the boundaries of the work fungible, it simultaneously makes it possible for us to love more content at once than ever. If you use the internet to discover what is popular in cultures that arenβt obvious to you and pair that discovery with explanations from AI and online communities, the journey of making your creative antennae stronger never has to end.Β
As our technical capabilities improve and it gets easier to inject technology into all kinds of products, founders need to move away from asking what they should add to what they shouldn't. Of course, you have to understand your customersβ needs, but you also need to understand their ontology. In βTradition and the Individual Talent,β Eliot argues: "What happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it." The same is true in tech. The product you build today changes everything else around it.Β
In a world awash with technology, let's strive for the extraordinary, where our innovations don't just function but feel alive, enriched by the essence of the humanities.
Check out the full article to learn why liberal arts plays a big role in the success of startups in this new era.π
π¨Claremonster Call-Out: Tom Driscoll
Claremont graduate Tom Driscoll (HMC β01) is the co-founder and CTO of Echodyne, a radar platform company that designs and delivers innovative, high-performance, compact, solid-state MESA radars to commercial markets. Tom leads the world-class engineering team developing Echodyneβs product portfolio. Heβs a named inventor on over 100 patents and has co-founded five other startups as well. Prior to Echodyne, Tom was Managing Director of the Metamaterials Commercialization Center at Intellectual Ventures. He is also now the co-founder of two other StoryHouse portfolio companies β Kapta Space and Neurophos.
Neurophos is developing the world's most advanced form of AI inference accelerator: photonic in-memory computing using metamaterials. They recently raised a $7.2M seed round led by Gates Frontier (Bill Gateβs VC Fund) and MetaVC Partners, to commercialize metamaterial and optical AI inference chips targeting data center applications. StoryHouse is proud to be an investor as well, supporting them on this journey. π
πΌ Whoβs Hiring?: Terra AI & Rise
StoryHouse portfolio company Terra AI is on a mission to provide the premier AI platform for the development of critical natural resources. They're leveraging AI modeling, reasoning, and optimization to enhance the performance, predictability, and safety of reservoir, wind, and mineral development projects. Claremont grad Anthony Corso (HMC '14) and John Mern (who previously worked for the unicorn startup KoBold Metals, founded by CMC grad Kurt House) are the co-founders of Terra, and they are looking for a talented Senior Software Engineer to lead the development of their core web application product. If you're interested in learning more or know someone who'd be a great fit for this role, shoot us a message.
Machine Learning Engineer (Hybrid) - Ideally, someone with a background in building image-generation models such as Dall-E, Adobe Firefly, etc.
Claremont serial entrepreneur Daniel Ross (PO β11) is the previous co-founder of mental healthcare unicorn Headway. He is also now the co-founder of StoryHouse portfolio company Rise β a teen mental health system that offers help to teens and families early in their mental health journey. Rise distributes care in partnership with school counselors, helping kids who need more help than they can get at school. Dan is building the company together with his Headway co-founder Jake Sussman, and they are backed by leaders from the world of both health care and technology, including Khosla and Town Hall Ventures. They are looking for a founding engineer to join their team on this new journey. If youβre interested in the role, message us directly.
Founding Engineer - 5+ years of experience at an early-stage and high-growth startup preferred
Check out the other ~5,000 open jobs at 400+ Claremont-affiliated companies here on our Storyboard. Plus, create a profile and enter your preferences to get alerted to new job postings relevant to you, be they the 1,000+ remote jobs, 100+ internships, or 40+ part-time positions available. Weβve published research that shows that Claremont-founded companies that disproportionately hire Claremont talent outperform β so pay attention, Claremonsters!
If any of these roles catch your eye π , apply and mention Between the Lines. Or, if you are an employer looking to hire tip-top Claremont talent, fill out this form to have your jobs featured.
π£οΈ Conversations on the Interwebz:
This weekβs top read π₯
The FDA has approved the first CRISPR-based therapy for a disease that affects almost 100,000 Americans. Casgevy, the gene-editing therapy developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics, uses CRISPR to prevent debilitating pain in patients with sickle cell disease. Claremont alum and Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna (PO β85) is the pioneering biochemist and co-inventor of CRISPR. Though itβs still a rarefied treatment at the moment, Jennifer stated in an interview with WIRED that she believes CRISPR is for everyone.
This weekβs Claremont financing πΈ
A huge congratulations to Claremont grad Sean McQueen (CMC) and LaunchScience on their successful exit. LaunchScience, a SaaS platform for improving product launches, was able to raise $4M in venture capital in just 18 months and was recently acquired by B2B-focused analytics company Octane11.
Claremont grads Dmitri Skjorshammer (HMC β11) and Noah Duncan (HMC β12) are the co-founders of Charma β a performance management software that improves how managers and employees engage in the modern era. They were recently acquired by HR tech company The Predictive Index. Through this strategic partnership, Charma will be able to bring new layers of personalization and behavioral science to performance management software.
Maternal healthcare startup Mahmee just closed its $1.8M venture round. Mahmee is revolutionizing maternal and child healthcare with a patient-centric care management platform that makes it easy for practitioners to make referrals and collaborate to deliver high-quality, individualized care online and in person. Claremont entrepreneur Melissa Hanna (PO β09, CGU β15) is the co-founder and CEO.
This weekβs top listen π§
Serial Claremont entrepreneur Sam Corcos (CMC) sat down with Harry Stebbings from 20VC to discuss why startups should take as many VC meetings as possible. They go deep into Samβs philosophy and tactics for building connections with top VCs, fundraising like a pro, and making the most of investor relationships. Sam is the co-founder and CEO of Levels β an a16z-backed health tech company helping you see how food affects your health with data from biosensors.
Everything else you need to knowπ‘
Claremont biotech entrepreneur Laura Hsieh (SC β09) and TippingPoint Biosciences were recently awarded the Astellas Future Innovator prize from Astellas Pharma and MBC BioLabs. TippingPoint is a UCSF spin-out based on chromatin biology dedicated to creating new approaches to treat diseases of genome packaging, such as hard-to-treat cancers, and improving the quality of life of the patients. As a winner, the team will gain access to Astellasβ R&D scientists, mentors, business leaders, and the Astellas network.
Canβt get enough of Between the Lines? Follow and connect with us on Twitter!
π½οΈ BTL Snacks:
βοΈ The Uber Of Private Aviationβ¦.. CNN recently featured aviation company KinectAir in an article, calling them the βUber of private aviation.β KinectAir uses AI-backed software to trawl through private airplane operators to give customers options that are cheaper than flying commercial. Claremont alum Peter Lucier (PO β00) was the previous co-founder and general counsel of KinectAir. Kevin Guardia (PI), another Claremont grad, is also the companyβs current Head of Finance.
Feedback? We love to hear it.Β Hit us with an email. ππΌ