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I recently celebrated my 70th birthday, and with that in my rear view mirror, I find…
Articles by Tom
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Next Week in Denver – 1O.1O.1O Cities (Health)! May 7-17, 2018.
Next Week in Denver – 1O.1O.1O Cities (Health)! May 7-17, 2018.
10 Wicked Problems | 10 Days | 10 Prospective CEOs. – Who has @101010net selected to attempt to solve 10 wicked #health…
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10.10.10 & the search for “Impact Entrepreneurs” (aka “Prospective CEOs”)
10.10.10 & the search for “Impact Entrepreneurs” (aka “Prospective CEOs”)
If you already know about 10.10.
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10.10.10 – Looking to Seasoned, Successful Entrepreneurs as a Key to Wicked Problems in Health.
10.10.10 – Looking to Seasoned, Successful Entrepreneurs as a Key to Wicked Problems in Health.
John Michael Oro of CyberMed News interviews me, and I answer questions about 10.10.
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Tom Higley reposted thisTom Higley reposted thisAt UBS, we match your ambition with insight and expertise to shape a unique outcome for you. #UBSCraft
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Tom Higley reposted thisTom Higley reposted thisEver called yourself a Conscious Capitalist? Does making a real impact without sacrificing returns sound too good to be true? I thought so, too, until I spent a year learning about community living, did the math, and the primary market research Announcing…. Wait for it…. From behind the curtain comes Conscious Cashflow! Here are the Components….. --Purchase a “share” of a building utilizing Fractionalized Ownership --Rehabilitate the Property --Lease to Proven Recovery Professionals --Generate Profits while helping people transform their lives. Here are the Principles….. We are focused on our flagship project, repurposing a building to become a facility for people in recovery. Here is the Win-Win-Win-Win.(I call it the Four-Dubya) INVESTOR Win: Make above-average returns and get the IIP: Impact Investor Prestige. OPERATOR Win: Build their business with increased income. RECIPIENT Win: Access to a sober living facility and a more meaningful life. HUMANITY Win: Expansion of human consciousness to fulfill Maslow’s needs This allows many people, with small dollars, to invest in socially positive real estate. Make money. Help your fellow human. Don’t worry, this is not just a do-gooder attempt. If you like nerding out about this stuff like I do, let’s have a conversation. No pitchslap. Bleeding hearts need not apply. Seeking conscious collaborators, change makers, and mad scientists. Wanna poke holes in this? Lemme hear you! Don’t think this can work? Tell me why. Already doing this? I’d love to hear about it. With love, Z
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Tom Higley reposted thisTom Higley reposted thisI’ve seen founders who are in their 60’s. They may not have the energy of their 20s. But here’s what they do have: A perspective earned through decades of experience. Many times they spent a decade in a lab or earning a PhD. They spent another decade working at a larger company, gaining technical experience. They may have worked at a startup or two, seeing firsthand how companies are built. After that time, they see an opportunity. The inspiration for when you start a company is not always obvious. Data shows this inspiration for starting a company tends to be later in people's careers. Don’t let anyone tell you that running a startup is a young person’s game. The journey you’ve traveled gives you a unique insight into the problems that need solving and the right way to go around solving them. Entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes, and one of them is your shape.
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Tom Higley shared thisThere’s a shift in the works, a wave coming that too few people in the U.S. are paying attention to. Bloomers recognizes this and engages the people and organizations who can help us prepare for what’s ahead. What am I talking about? Declining birth rates and greater longevity put the U.S. on course to an aging population. The problems we will face include ageism, figuring out how to age well in your own home, savings for retirement that promises to be too little too late for many, a younger entrepreneurial community that has little awareness of age-tech opportunities, and so much more. That said, today we can do so much that would have been impossible just a few years ago. Consider this an invitation to check out the Bloomers Project as a way to do something incredibly powerful and meaningful. Here’s a new way to connect with many great people and organizations. Ben Moultrie, Joie Glenn, Jodi Waterhouse, MHA Ziah Orion, Judy Toran Cousin, Kimberly Harris, Hailey How, Steve Tremitiere, Bob Brocker, Erin Maruzzella, Cambria Jacobs, Rachel B. Cohen, MSW, MUP, Briony Catlow, David GerasTom Higley shared this🤔 How can we reimagine aging to empower our elders with technology and independence? Here is a screenshot from our latest virtual meeting of some of our members...Tom Higley, Ziah Orion, Cambria Jacobs, Ben Moultrie, Erin Maruzzella, Bob Brocker, Jodi Waterhouse, MHA, Ken Taylor, Rachel B. Cohen, MSW, MUP, Joie Glenn, Judy Toran Cousin, David Geras The Bloomers Project delved into this question, exploring AgeTech, Aging in Place, and refining our mission with the Business Model Canvas. 🚀 We're at the forefront of addressing the aging population challenge, seeking innovative ways to support seniors in living independently and with dignity. 🏡💡 Through the Business Model Canvas, we're crafting targeted, impactful solutions, ensuring our actions are as purposeful as our vision. 📊✨ Join our mission. Together, let's transform the future of aging into one of empowerment and innovation. 🌸🌍 #TheBloomersProject #AgeTech #AgingInPlace #Innovation #SocialChange
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Tom Higley reposted thisTom Higley reposted thisHi everyone, I'm excited to open the doors for the next cohort of the Morrow Studio Boot Camp! Apply to join the Spring cohort (kicking off April 16th) via this link: https://lnkd.in/evNAAAgz Learn how to build your studio over the course of 10 weeks from amazing leaders who have been there, done that, got the t-shirt, the stories, and the battle scars to prove it! Each week you'll get 1:1 mentoring from the amazing Attila Szigeti, and an hour-long Q&A with each host after they've delivered their great content. The boot camp culminates with a pitch session on June 18 where you'll get live feedback on the design of your studio. Our list of course leaders and subject matter includes: - Our master moderator and leader of session one, Alper Celen of Enhance Ventures on The State of Startup Studios & Critical Design Choices - Tom Higley of X Genesis on Establishing Your Advantage - John Carbrey of FutureSight on Selecting the Right Studio Operating Structure - Michael van Lier of Builders on Formulating Early Teams - Miles Dotson of Devland Innovation on Venture Studio and Company Lifecycles - T.A. McCann of Pioneer Square Labs on Creating an Investable Ideation and Validation Process - Wenyi Cai of Polymath Ventures on Moving from Validation to Product Market Fit - Todd Ehrlich of Rule1 Ventures on Raising the Right Way — Funding Your Studio Questions about the boot camp? Drop me an email at steve@morrow.co!
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Tom Higley reposted thisThanks for this post Eric. The history of the Colorado tech ecosystem has deep roots. Some fun facts to add to the story here... Ever wonder why there are streets named Tape Drive and Disk Drive (yes, with a 'k' not a 'c') in Broomfield? StorageTek was founded in 1969 by four engineers from the Colorado IBM office. When IBM told them they were getting moved, they said "no" and founded Storage Technologies Inc. SpringTime's partner Rick Patch founded a tech company in 1980 after he graduated form CU Boulder. He sold that business to Sybase, then stayed on as Sybase IPO'd. After the IPO, Rick and a group of other tech & biotech entrepreneurs, including John Greff, founded Sequel Ventures in Boulder. (We're lucky to have John as our CFO, too.) Sequel raised $410 million across three funds in the late 90s. Those were massive funds back then. Oh, and that little Storage Technologies company? That sold to Sun Microsystems in 2005 for $4.1 billion in cash. I'm skipping over other big local exits like Datalogix, HomeAdvisor, SendGrid and many more. I'm grateful for all that the previous generations have done to build and grow the ecosystem that I now get to participate in. And, like you, I look to see what I can do to contribute for my generation and to set the next generation up for success.Tom Higley reposted thisThe twin announcements about Foundry and Techstars hit me hard. The first time I visited Boulder was at Brad Feld's invitation to mentor the first Techstars cohort, and I moved here when Foundry invested in Gnip. I would not live in Colorado if not for those two institutions. In the days following the Techstars announcements, there have been a lot of questions, mainly centered around 1) is Colorado still a great place to build startups and 2) what should we build in Techstars' place? The answer to the former is a resounding "yes". Colorado has a thriving startup ecosystem that expands far beyond our Boulder beginnings. Back in the 2010s, Gnip's $150M acquisition by Twitter was considered huge, and now we have billion-dollar companies like Guild, SonderMind, JumpCloud, Veho, Ibotta, Inc. and many more. Foundry will forever be remembered as a primary driver of Colorado's early startup reputation and we may never have another group of partners so singularly influential in our community. But the partners at Range Ventures, Hannah Grey VC, SpringTime Ventures, Access Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, FirstMile Ventures, Boulder Ventures, Stout Street Capital and, and, and... are funding more Colorado companies than Foundry ever could. Techstars is equally entwined in Colorado's own founder story. David Cohen, along with folks like Nicole Glaros and Natty Zola, created a huge buzz in Boulder by elevating so many local startups to national prominence, and convincing dozens of early companies to relocate to our state. It may feel like Colorado's startup ecosystem went into hibernation during COVID. Boulder Startup Week effectively shut down, along with staple events like Boulder Ignite and TEDx Boulder. All three of those are coming back with a vengeance, and meanwhile Erik Mitisek and crew have built Denver Startup Week into a 10,000-person event. Paul Foley and his team at Colorado Startups have supported a wide variety of events since before the pandemic, and that number grows every year. And while it's a very small part of the overall ecosystem, I started the Thunderview CEO Dinners last year as a place to bring together bootstrapped and early-/scaling-stage startup CEOs. Each month, 40+ founders get together to celebrate each others' wins and help solve real needs. Our community is now well over 300 founders and I am so proud of the work that Megan Hanson, Lizzie Nelson, Joe Valley and Mercury Cafe owner Danny Newman do each month to support a Colorado founder community that is more powerful than ever. Our next dinner is next Thursday (March 7th) in Downtown Denver and we still have a few seats left for startup CEOs and investors who wish to be helpful. If you'd like to be a part of this community and perhaps discuss how to continue to evolve the Boulder/Denver tech scene, we would love to see you there. Get your ticket at https://lnkd.in/ghGpVB_Y
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Tom Higley reposted thisTom Higley reposted thisThe Rocky Mountain AI Interest Group (RMAIIG) will host an in-person meeting on Wednesday, January 10th at 6 PM MDT in Boulder, CO on "Fine Tuning and Optimizing Large Language Models." Launching a Large Language Model (LLM) like GPT-4 which powers ChatGPT can involve at least three distinct processes: training, fine-tuning, and optimizing. Each of these has its own purpose and methodology in the development of AI models. At a high level, training establishes the foundational knowledge of the LLM, fine-tuning adapts it to specific tasks or domains, and optimizing enhances its performance and efficiency for practical use. Each process is crucial in developing an LLM that is both powerful and applicable to real-world tasks. This meeting will focus on steps 2 and 3: fine-tuning and optimizing LLMs. (Note: This meeting will delve a little deeper into technical topics than we normally do, but will still be suitable for a general AI-curious audience. Let's lift the hood and peer a little deeper into preparing these powerful models.) "Fine Tuning and Optimizing Large Language Models" CU Boulder: In-person ATLAS building (Room 100) 1125 18th St, Boulder, CO 80309 Wed, Jan 10th 6 - 8 PM MDT RSVP: https://lnkd.in/g5YCf5UrWed, Jan 10th: "Fine Tuning and Optimizing LLMs," 6 PM, CU Boulder, Wed, Jan 10, 2024, 6:00 PM | MeetupWed, Jan 10th: "Fine Tuning and Optimizing LLMs," 6 PM, CU Boulder, Wed, Jan 10, 2024, 6:00 PM | Meetup
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Tom Higley shared thisWell, this happened. Talk about shaking things up in a major way. The board may not have trusted Sam, but expect many of the rest of us did. And what happens next is going to be a very big deal. https://lnkd.in/g2NstxjqOpenAI’s Board Pushes Out Sam Altman, Its High-Profile C.E.O. (Published 2023)OpenAI’s Board Pushes Out Sam Altman, Its High-Profile C.E.O. (Published 2023)
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Tom Higley reposted thisTom Higley reposted thisFree: for all interested in venture studios, startup studios & venture builders. Join our Venture Studio Online Conference + P2P Studio Hacks Contribution session organized by Max Pog. Online: November 8th, London time: 5:00 PM (GMT+0). The link to register for free: https://lnkd.in/gfcaVjv5 1. First part (1.5 hours) – speakers + QA: – Quentin Nickmans, founder of Hexa (originated from eFounders), a startup studio with 3 unicorns created out of 38 startups launched (portfolio valuation: $5B+). Topic: How to scale a studio once it has proven efficient. – Alper Celen, founder of Enhance Ventures and master moderator of the Venture Studio Bootcamp GSSN powered by Morrow. Enhance Ventures is known for its whitepaper on studios and the Global Venture Studio Map (896+ counting). Topic: State of the Studio World. – Renan Devillieres, founder of OSS Ventures – created 15 companies in 4 years, €22M ARR (portfolio), 60% of their startups’ co-founders had previous exits. Topic: Learnings from a SaaS verticalized startup studio. – Rasmus Rothe, founder of Merantix – an AI venture studio (before it became mainstream – since 2016), raised €10M into the studio + €30M in the fund. Topic: Ecosystems – the secret edge for venture studios. – Elliott Parker, CEO High Alpha Innovation – a venture builder, launched ~20 companies in partnership with corporations, universities, and founders. The venture builder was born in High Alpha (where Elliott was a managing director), a venture studio with funds for creating & investing in B2B SaaS, with $500M raised across their funds and portfolio companies. – Dmitry Samoylovskikh (founder of Uniborn) will present our investment syndicate for startup studios & their startups (spinouts). Additionally, Max Pog will share the concept of a P2P studio community he is creating and inviting you to join. 2. Second part (1 hour) – P2P Studio Hacks Contribution session in Zoom breakout rooms + P2P discussion. Everyone (willing to get others’ insights) will share their experience and hacks regarding: – fundraising for studios & their startups (during VC winter) – attracting the best founders (ideally, with previous exits) – launching a studio (without tens of $M funds) – managing a studio (and having work-free weekends) – defining problems & generating ideas (that are missed by giant corporations) – reaching PMF (and generating revenue) before creating MVP – attracting advisors (and not necessarily sharing equity) Join for free & help with the promotion ❤️ The link to register: https://lnkd.in/gfcaVjv5 #venturestudio #startupstudio #venturecapital #venturebuilding #innovation #startups #entrepreneurship
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Tom Higley liked thisTom Higley liked thisIt's time to rethink startups and software development in the AI era.
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Tom Higley liked thisTom Higley liked this🔥 🔥 Awesome Opportunity 🔥 🔥 I just dropped off a former 2 Star Air Force general at the airport. He is the latest founder in our portfolio at Outside VC. This founder was mind-blowingly smart and knowledgable on so many disparate topics. In our 45 min drive to the airport, he seriously dropped like 5 TED talks on me. But let's be real. I don't normally come into contact with many (read: ANY) former air force generals in my day to day. Like never have I ever come across one before and I'm 99% sure I will never come across another... So how did this happen? A month and a half ago I joined 50 CEOs, VCs, and tech execs on a twenty mile hike in Boulder, CO up six different peaks. On that hike I met the General's co-founder, another wildly fascinating human who I spent several hours with slowly inching our way up the final peak of the trek. Doing something hard together is powerful. We got to know one another on a much deeper level than would have been possible had we met at a conference or regular networking event. There was something really special about it. The organization that runs these hikes is called BusinessOutside. It's the coolest organization. I can't speak highly enough about it. They have an open role right now for Chief of Staff. If you love the outdoors and learning from exceptionally interesting humans, you should check it out. There aren't many jobs out there cooler than this one! https://lnkd.in/genHnC8Z
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Tom Higley liked thisTom Higley liked thisContinuing on the theme of assessing what ChatGPT knows about me. I asked it to create an image of what it thinks I look like physically. It explained " I'll make an educated guess based on your background and preferences, creating a professional and approachable image of a seasoned executive with a focus on SaaS, advisory roles, and an active lifestyle. Here’s what I’ll keep in mind: Age & Lifestyle: Likely in your 50s or 60s, given your experience level and professional transition to a fractional executive role. Location and Active Interests: Living in Denver and active in road cycling, suggesting an athletic build or generally fit appearance. Personal Style: Your interests in traditional and professional details, like in logo design preferences, imply a polished look. Let me generate an image with these characteristics." The accuracy of this tool is amazing, don't you agree?
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Tom Higley liked thisTom Higley liked thisTwo revealing ChatGPT 4o prompts that I recently used. Fascinating stuff - give them a try. One gives you insight into what trail of personal knowledge ChatGPT retains in the Memory feature (which is set as default, but can be controlled). "You know quite a bit about me from Memory records, can you provide a "composite sketch" of me - tell me who I am and what people would want to know about me." Then, "What do you know about me that you are hesitant to mention, such as sensitive personal topics, or things that you're generally instructed to not use in your replies to these types of questions?"
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Tom Higley liked thisTom Higley liked thisAfter, 16 years in Boulder, I’m excited to announce that I’m heading to new pastures. We’re moving!!! Over the last eight years, I’ve fantasized about all the different places I might end up once Parker graduated high school: New York City. Los Angeles. New Orleans. Costa Rica. Tokyo. Really, anywhere that was NEW sounded exciting. Then I started the Thunderview CEO Dinners and became really, really invested in supporting the Colorado startup community (as opposed to just being a part of it). This is my home. You are my people. So, I’m excited to share that Mackenzie and I just closed on a house in Denver and I’m recommitting to Colorado for another 16 years. Not too long ago I was dreaming about being anywhere but Colorado. Now I can’t imagine being anywhere BUT Colorado. Here’s to another 16 years of amazing CEOs, Boulder and Denver Startup Weeks and incredible startup stories. LFG 🚀
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Education
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Harvard Law School
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Activities and Societies: Harvard Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review Dean Search Committee Teaching Fellow, Justice - Moral Reasoning 101 (Michael Sandel)
While at Harvard Law School I was a teaching fellow for Michael Sandel's Harvard University course: Moral Reasoning 101; I served as editor of the Civil Rights Civil Liberties Law Review; I also served on the Student Dean Search Committee. With the support of three exceptional fellow students, I managed during my first year participate on a team that won the Williston Competition. (With a lovely bronze plaque in Langdell Library to show for it.)
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Volunteer Experience
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Mentor
Techstars
- Present 19 years 1 month
Economic Empowerment
A changing set of opportunities, challenges and surprises made even more interesting by smart people, changing technologies and new approaches to entrepreneurship and business.
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Advisor
Bloomers Project
- Present 4 years 2 months
Education
Since 2022, I have engaged with a diverse group of Movers & Shakers located throughout Colorado to understand and address the challenges and entrepreneurial opportunities that arise as a population increases in size and lives much longer.
Languages
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Ancient and classical Greek
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Tim Ericson
🚀 Meet PACT, simplifying SBA-backed acquisitions with investors. Think YC’s SAFE, but built for Main Street M&A. 📘 What is PACT and why we built it PACT (Partnership Acquisition Commonsense Terms) is a free, balanced starting point for the agreements used in SBA-backed acquisitions with outside investors. For too long, SBA-backed acquisitions with outside investors have been the wild west: every deal is different, inefficient, and confusing, especially for first-time searchers raising capital. PACT gives everyone a common baseline so reviews are faster, expectations are clear, and operators can focus on acquiring the business. 🧩 SAFE for ETA Y Combinator’s SAFE gave startups a shared template that made early investing easier to execute. PACT brings that same idea to ETA. It teaches the key concepts in plain English, aligns searchers and investors on the economics, and sets a fair place to start. Our goal is for PACT to become the default baseline for investor-backed small business acquisitions using SBA loans. 🤝 Who contributed 🏛️ Legal input from top SMB M&A attorneys: Joseph Spina (Cullen and Dykman LLP), Mark Dittrich (Groundswell Advisors, LLP), and Eric Hsu (Clear Focus Law, PLLC) provided feedback on drafts. 💼 Early investor adopters: Jordan F. (Shareholder Ventures), Grant Hensel (Entrepreneurial Capital), Jason Ehrlich (Fruition Capital), Sean Smith (Search Fund Ventures), Adam Kaplan (ETA Funding Partners), Jacob Hall (Kando Capital), Tony Cappaert (Workbench Capital) and Adam Markley (PROX Search Capital) have adopted PACT on new deals. 🎓 Community support: Chelsea Wood and Walker Deibel at the Acquisition Lab and Buy Then Build have committed to start educating the community on how investor deals work using PACT. 👉 What to do next 🔍 Searchers: download the docs and ask your lawyer to start from PACT. ⚖️ SMB M&A Law firms: review the templates and send feedback so the next version is better. 💸 SMB investors: adopt PACT as your starting point and share redlines from real deals. This is a community-led standard, and we will keep versioning PACT as feedback comes in from all sides. 📝 Thanks: Special thanks to Joseph Spina for leading the legal drafting with me and helping shape a true middle ground. 🔗 Download PACT and see the key terms: ETAPACT.com (link in the comments) Let’s make investor-backed acquisitions clearer, faster, and fairer for everyone. 🚨 DISCLAIMER: PACT is not legal advice. Searchers must engage experienced SMB M&A counsel to review and tailor these documents to their deal.
27 Comments -
Jeff James Martin
"If you don't keep up with technology, your competitors will. It becomes a competitive imperative." Oren Michels, CEO and Co-founder of Barndoor AI, talks about leading your industry through tech on Tech Scenes Unplugged. #venturebacked #vcbacked #venturecapital #leadership #ceo #founder #operatingsystem #peakOS #foundermode
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Ryan Sommerville
Thrilled to share the launch of Criticality, a $65M fund built to back founders solving hard, high-leverage problems at the intersection of technical complexity and real-world urgency. Criticality builds on the foundation we’ve laid at Antler - applying our conviction-driven approach to companies at Seed & Series A. The fund is sector-flexible but applies a deep tech lens to each opportunity, targeting non-obvious, high-leverage problems from the earliest stages of company formation. Grateful to the New Mexico State Investment Council for their support in anchoring Criticality. More to come soon from Cash Allred & I.
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Nate Warren
Can campy, violent ninjas from an indie RPG help protect small creator rights against AI? It's certainly worth a roll of the d12. Human Intelligence® today welcomed the first tabletop creators to certify both themselves and their work with HI's patent-pending human authentication tools. Walton Wood and Rugose Kohn (Hammer & Hatchet, The Bogfolk) created NINJA BORG, a spinoff of the MÖRK BORG roleplaying game system, to let players live out their version of violent and campy ninja films of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Both Wood and Kohn are now verified as Human Creators and NINJA BORG is certified as Human Intelligence. Human Intelligence tools can protect human creators at the personal, published work, and organizational level. The Humanright™ mark on their profiles and work certification on the NINJA BORG website are a new way to safeguard IP and create trust with audiences for whom “human-made” is the main reason to buy, engage, promote, or partner. “As a visual artist, the advance of generative AI and its theft with no consent or agency on the part of artists is extremely troubling,” said Kohn. “I feel I am already exploited and under-compensated for my effort, and now it is accelerating exponentially with generative AI. Getting verified is a way to take some sort of stand against this.” “Making something as stupid as NINJA BORG requires dogged human effort; GenAI could never hope to attempt it,” added Wood. “Our friends in the RPG community know this. But what about players who don’t want AI-generated games and don’t know us? That’s part of what the H mark is for. Ninjas have pretty sweet moves. Defending themselves against lame synthetic pirates is one of them.” Human Intelligence® authentication is currently offered on a pay-what-you-can basis for the early cohort of tabletop creators who want to proclaim their human-made ethos, protect their work, and help build the trust layer between real creatives and their audiences. Learn more with the link down there or just hit me up with questions...
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Dave Lambert
We invest at Pre-VC and Pre-Seed, and then help our founders find a Seed round when they're ready. Here are 27 Seed investors that we *know* are active right now. Blue Moon Bonfire Ventures Chingona Ventures Flying Fish Partners Foothill Ventures Great North Ventures ground game HealthX Ventures InsurTech Venture Partners KCRise Fund Las Olas Venture Capital Leva Capital Maven Ventures Monte Carlo Capital Moonshots Capital OneSixOne Ventures Oval Park Capital Pixel Perfect Ventures Range Ventures Revolution SNAK Venture Partners Startup Capital Ventures Supernode Global Susa Ventures Trilogy Equity Partners True Ventures True Wealth Ventures
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Jeffrey Seah
🥾 #bootstrapping as a mindset should be ephemeral, one that requires a deliberate transition away from as a business enters sustained growth Appointing an established auditor is often regarded as a luxury and not part of bootstrapping Audits discipline a business - to be methodical, thorough and deliberate - traits that acquirers often seek in due diligence After all, "What gets inspected, gets respected," Anon We will share the traits of venture businesses sought and respected by MNC acquirers, join us if your business is out of the #bootstrapping mindset #fulfillingpotential #hepmil #oobmil
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Albert Bielinko
Delighted OpenSolar has raised US$20M including from new investors like Google. This follows its recent release of its AI powered end to end solution for electrification. “OpenSolar technology has facilitated 6,000,000 solar system designs resulting in $10bn worth of solar sales, since inception. With the next generation of AI tools, we can take solar growth to the next level, reduce the cost of delivery and help take solar to 50% of energy globally by 2035.”
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Parminder Singh
When it comes to selling your business, what role do patents really play? In this podcast clip, Kurt shares why patents are often underestimated and how they can make a real difference to buyer confidence and valuation. It raises an important question: are business owners thinking about IP early enough in their journey, or only when it’s too late? 👉 We’ll share the full podcast in the comments.
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Troy Allen Melquist
Harnessing the SEC's Edgar Files to Teach AI How Executives Think—Starting With the Cannabis CEO Every executive’s edge comes from seeing possibilities, risks, and opportunities hidden in plain sight. Now, imagine if AI could see through the same lens. As a data scientist and AI developer, the challenge is not just teaching algorithms to read data—it’s teaching them to think like real-world leaders. At Leaf List Cannatech, that journey starts with the SEC’s Edgar files—the richest, most transparent treasury of business decisions, disclosures, and strategies on the planet. Edgar Files: The Executive’s Classroom EDGAR (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval) is the system public companies use to submit legally required filings to the SEC—such as annual/quarterly reports, registration statements, and disclosures. This data trove isn’t just raw info; it’s the living record of how executives reason through financial storms, regulatory shifts, and competitive landscapes. By training AI on these filings, the algorithms learn not only numbers, but the strategic logic behind the moves—the “why” that creates executive judgment. Building the First Virtual CEO for Cannabis The first virtual executive being developed at Leaf List Cannatech is a CEO who truly “gets” cannabis. This is not a chatbot—it’s an AI that recognizes the regulatory nuance, compliance demands, and market dynamics unique to cannabis. The workflow looks like this: Step 1: Pretrain the model on Edgar files from cannabis-focused public companies. This teaches the AI foundational business language, reporting standards, and regulatory norms applied by real cannabis executives. Step 2: Fine-tune on specialized cannabis filings—state marketing and enforcement reports, sales disclosures, and news releases. Here, the AI learns how cannabis CEOs react to enforcement actions, market surges, and legislative shifts. It picks up the subtleties of responding to state-level reports on marketing, sales, and compliance. Step 3: Continuously update with industry news, analytics, and real-time public resources, ensuring the virtual CEO evolves with the industry’s rapid changes. Why Edgar Is Essential Training strictly on Edgar files means the virtual CEO learns from documented facts—not rumor or opinion. EDGAR’s unbiased, comprehensive, and legally verified reports make it the gold standard for building AI that thinks critically and transparently. It’s a crash course in fiduciary duty, investor communication, and the cold realities of publicly traded cannabis operations. Looking Ahead: Smarter, Trustworthy AI Leadership The goal? Create virtual executives who aren’t just reactive assistants, but forward-thinking leaders—capable of guiding cannabis companies through regulatory mazes, market swings, and compliance hurdles. By starting with Edgar, then layering on public resources and dynamic news, Leaf List Cannatech is forging AI that’s as strategic and trustworthy as the real thing.
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