Arian Ghashghai's videos and podcasts
This week
it *is* actually possible to own as much upfront without giving up diversification as part of the same portfolio strategy (e.g. @EarthlingVC Fund I is ~70% deployed and has already exceeded target # of investments while meeting ownership targets):
Ep 303: Investing in technologies augmenting human capabilities with Arian Ghashghai from Earthling Ventures - Life Self Mastery
Earlier this month
a lot of conversations with I'm having with founders recently go like "if we do x, y, z, before <date>, will that be good enough to raise a seed/A?". my canned response at this point is that they are trying to assign logic (business performance) to a process that's currently entirely irrational (fundraising)
just wired @EarthlingVC's 7th bio deal of 2026. going increasingly hard on bio (only disinclination I have is pure therapeutics plays at this point)
Q3 was the highest volume quarter for @EarthlingVC to-date, 10 new deals and most $$ deployed:
I’m more agnostic than most about data centers, but I will say one thing: I live in Northern VA, Loudon County (the county over from me) is the data center capital of the world and incidentally the highest median income county in the entire US (yes, higher than Bay Area counties)
it’s a positive step that it’s become commonly accepted now among the US startup ecosystem that China is ahead of the US in robotics, and there is work to do
September 2026
Amped for J floor to bring bio builders together in Zurich If you’re in Zurich building anything in...
Nikunj is 100% correct that the majority of the venture market appears to be mercenaries running after a finite opportunity set (as I posted about a couple of days ago), yet once again this is just VCs reaping what they sow by creating an excessively financialized asset class that prioritizes short-term wins over long-term value. as much, i assign no primary blame to founders for a psychologically miserable VC market:
the fundraising market is very hot and very founder-friendly atm, but I'm still seeing a lot of founders make misguided errors that complicate or derail their raises entirely. a non-exhaustive list of own goals to avoid:
as one of like 3 VCs that has VR positions in an active fund, i don't really see the point of Meta's VR glasses tbh: