💰 A $100K check that became a $15 billion investment

In 1998, Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, watched a demo of Google's PageRank and wrote a $100,000 check to "Google Inc." in less than 30 minutes.

The company hadn't even been incorporated yet.

Google went public in 2004, turning his stake into roughly $300 million. Instead of selling, Bechtolsheim kept his shares, and their value has since grown to more than $15 billion.

The investment is one of Silicon Valley's most successful angel bets, showing how early conviction can matter more than months of due diligence.

✔️ @venture

📈 The S&P 500 has never been this concentrated

At the peak of the dot-com bubble, it took 32 stocks to make up half of the S&P 500. Today, it takes just 24, making the index more concentrated than at any point in its history.
Since ChatGPT launched, 42 AI-related companies have generated up to 75% of the index's returns, profit growth, and capital spending.
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That concentration is becoming a bigger risk. Short interest across the S&P 500 has climbed to its highest level since 2010, while AI infrastructure spending continues to outpace cash flow at some companies.
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When a small group of stocks drives most of the market, any disappointment can have an outsized impact on the entire index.

✔️ @venture

🔽 $2.8 TRILLION has been wiped out from stocks, gold, silver, and crypto in the last 24 hours

Here's why everything is crashing:

🖱 Alphabet's earnings disappointed investors last night.

It raised its 2026 AI spending plan to $195-205 billion, and tech stocks are crashing on fears that AI spending is growing faster than profits.

🖱 Oil prices jumped to 42 day high today after Houthi rebels attacked Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea.

🖱 The 10-year Treasury yield hit 4.714% today, its highest level since Jan 2025.

🖱 Odds of a Fed rate hike in September jumped to 82%, up from just 20% two weeks ago.

🖱 Trump told Axios he's close to ordering a "massive attack" on Iran, bigger than the last one.

Everything is feeding into the same fear, and every market is crashing because of it.

✔️ @venture

🇨🇳 China aims to produce 70% of its AI chips domestically by 2030

According to Morgan Stanley, China's AI chip self-sufficiency could rise from 10% in 2021 to 70% by 2030. After a brief plateau around 2025-2026, growth is expected to accelerate as domestic production scales.

U.S. export restrictions have pushed China to build its own semiconductor supply chain, from chip manufacturing to equipment, materials, and testing.
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Companies positioned to benefit include SMIC, Hua Hong Semiconductor, ACM Research, Kingsoft Cloud, and equipment makers Naura Technology and AMEC. Investors looking for broader exposure can also use ETFs focused on Chinese technology and semiconductor companies.
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The AI race is no longer just about building better chips. It's also about who can build the entire supply chain.

✔️ @venture

Elon Musk has lost $582 billion in net worth in the last 38 days, as SpaceX crashes 50% from its all-time high.

✔️ @venture

Michael Lewis says "The Stock Market is Rigged".

✔️ @venture

Michael Burry has disclosed his updated positions He:

🖱 Added to Micron short at $933.86

🖱 Added to Nvidia short at $210.28

🖱 Added to Caterpillar short at $893.49

🖱 Added to Semiconductor ETF short at $535.83

🖱 Added to Flutter long at $100.72

🖱 Added to DraftKings long at $23.07

🖱 Added to Molina long at $197.02

Burry left his Tesla, Palantir and QQQ shorts untouched

✔️ @venture

This isn't a meme stock.

It's a company that's lost 63% since its high - $500B in market cap.

It's the company spending $55B a year building the data centres that power AI.

It's taken on $167B in debt to do it - nearly double what it owed 2 years ago.

The biggest single corporate bet on the AI thesis.

And the market is pricing it like the thesis is already dead.

✔️ @venture

📉 U.S. oil reserve falls to its lowest level since 1983

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve has dropped to 311.4 million barrels, its lowest level in more than 40 years, after the release of 172 million barrels to help stabilize energy prices during the Iran conflict.

In 2020, Donald Trump proposed spending $3 billion to buy 77 million barrels when oil traded at $20-30 per barrel. The plan was never approved by Congress.
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With oil prices climbing again, the U.S. now has far less room to respond to future supply shocks.

✔️ @venture

❓ Why retail investors keep underperforming

Retail portfolios are down around 12.7% this year as many investors crowded into the same high-growth stocks. When those trades reversed, losses spread across entire portfolios.

The biggest mistake wasn't picking the wrong stock. It was poor risk management. Large positions, no exit plan, and portfolios concentrated in a handful of names amplified the drawdown.
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Simple rules can make a big difference: limit position sizes, rebalance regularly, keep cash for market selloffs, and compare your returns against the S&P 500 instead of chasing the next hot trade.
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Long-term performance is often driven more by risk management than stock picking.

✔️ @venture