Weekly Dose of Optimism #136
Abundance, Nvidia GTC, Splashdown, Matic, Food Dyes, Biotech Commoditization
Hi friends 👋,
Happy Friday and welcome back to our 136th Weekly Dose of Optimism. Today is likely one of the least productive non-holiday days of the year — the Friday of opening weekend of March Madness. Listen, I get it. There’s something about March Madness. I can go a full 4-5 months of not watching a lick of college basketball and then, suddenly, get pulled in for 12 hours of straight action during opening weekend. But before we all go and do that, there’s some light reading we need to do on all the optimistic stuff going on in the world.
Let’s get to it.
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(1) Abundance
The Abundance Brothers!
This week Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein released their much awaited book Abundance. The Abundance Agenda, on which the book is based, argues for a shift from scarcity-driven politics to policies that prioritize building more housing, infrastructure, clean energy, healthcare, and innovation—removing regulatory bottlenecks and enabling faster, more widespread growth to improve quality of life. In Abundance, Thompson and Klein, two of the more influential progressive pundits of the last decade, call for a proactive government to unlock supply and make goods and services more abundant and affordable.
The Abundance Agenda is the ideological first cousin of, what I’ll call, our Optimism Agenda. Both believe that the future can be better — that we can progress — and that individuals and organizations have agency in bringing about that future. And at the core of each agenda is action — in order for society to progress, we need to take more action and we need to build more.
Abundance is also, as far as I can tell, the leading and most compelling vision for America’s new Democratic Party. The Democratic Party, at least in theory, stands for a social safety net, economic equality, civil rights, and progressive policies on healthcare, climate change, and education. These outcomes are the same desired outcomes of the Abundance Agenda. But the Abundance Agenda offers a new roadmap for how we can achieve them. Whether or not the Democratic Party or a compelling Democratic politician fully embraces that roadmap is still very much TBD. I, for one, hope they do.
Perhaps no ideological theory has been written about more — directly or indirectly — in the Weekly Dose of Optimism than the Abundance Agenda. Now, thankfully, that entire theory is presented to us in a full book. We encourage you to go out, buy it, and read it.
(2) Nvidia Looks to Expand AI Reign With New Chips, Personal Supercomputers
Ian King for Bloomberg
The lineup includes a successor to Nvidia’s flagship AI processor called the Blackwell Ultra, as well as additional generations stretching into 2027. Huang also unveiled Dynamo-branded software that will fine-tune existing and future equipment, making it more efficient and profitable.
GTC, Nvidia’s annual event where it showcases its latest AI chips, software, and partnerships was earlier this week. And, unsurprisingly there was a ton of hype heading into it. So much hype, in fact, that our good friends at Acquired, covered it live.
Needless to say, this was an important event, both for the AI industry and Wall Street. The quick takeaway coming out of the event is that it was solid but lacked bombshells, leaving analysts reassured by Nvidia’s roadmap but still cautious. Here’s what Nvidia revealed (and it’s a lot):
Blackwell Ultra AI Chips (2025): Successor to Hopper, offering more power and efficiency for AI workloads.
Vera Rubin Chips (2026): Next-gen upgrade focused on advancing AI compute performance.
Rubin Ultra & Feynman Chips (2027+): Long-term roadmap highlighting continued AI chip innovation.
Dynamo Software Platform: AI "factory OS" designed to fine-tune and maximize hardware efficiency.
Isaac GR00T N1 Robotics Platform: Toolkit to accelerate humanoid robot development, partnered with Disney & DeepMind.
GM Partnership: Integrating AI into next-gen vehicles, factories, and robots.
6G Wireless Project: Collaborating with T-Mobile and Cisco to develop AI-native 6G network hardware.
Personal Supercomputers: Partnered with Dell, HP, others to launch desk-side AI systems for developers and researchers.
Quantum Computing Lab (Boston): New research initiative to push forward emerging quantum technologies.
Photonics Breakthrough: Revealed new chip system combining silicon and light waves for faster, more efficient AI compute.
Nvidia’s stock didn’t move much on any of this news, but rest assured GTC was a signal that the company is trying to pull up the ladder on any would-be competitors.
(3) NASA Astronauts’ Nine-Month Orbital Odyssey Ends in a Splashdown
Kenneth Chang and Thomas Fuller for The New York Times
They set off to spend eight days at the space station. The trip lasted nine months. On Tuesday, two NASA astronauts who had been in orbit since June, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, splashed down in calm, azure waters off the coast of the Florida Panhandle, concluding a saga that had captivated the country since last summer.
Houston, they’re back!
After 9 months “stranded” in space, NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore splashed back down to earth on Tuesday. The two set out for an 8-day mission aboard Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft but ended up spending 313 days on the International Space Station due to Starliner propulsion issues. Over the last couple of months, the “extended stay” was politicized by both parties — including Elon Musk — but thankfully the astronauts adapted to their situation —conducting research, spacewalks, and coping with physical tolls of prolonged weightlessness.
Ultimately SpaceX did save the day. NASA relied on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, which was already docked at the ISS as part of regular crew rotation capsule, to bring the two back to earth. We’re just glad that they’re back and that the private space industry is in such a place that these types of blunders can be relatively easily righted.
Ritwik Pavan on Hardware Nation
Imagine never having to do a household chore again.
Packy here. Puja and I have had a Matic zooming around our house for over a year, when Matic co-founder Mehul Nariyawala reached out and offered to send us a beta unit and then came to the house to help set it up himself. Do things that don’t scale.
Aside from the free robot, I have no economic ties to Matic — they’re not a sponsor and I’m not a Matic investor — but it’s legitimately one of the best hardware products I’ve tried in the past five years, and the startup hardware we use the most. The lil’ guy cleans our house every night, vacuuming and mopping away as we sleep. When they see it, the kids say, “Hi Robot,” sometimes in a robot voice. One day, it’ll talk back.
This video does a great job showing off why the Matic Robot is already the best home cleaning vacuum (suck it, Roomba), but also hints at why this cute little vacuum might be the most plausible path to Rosie from the Jetsons: a robot that happily does your chores for you.
“Can we go from floor cleaning to organizing your home to organizing your whole life,” Mehul asks near the end of the video.
Ritwan takes over to close it out: “Once we get this right, our kids won’t even believe there was a time when they had to do chores. They’ll grow up in homes where they can focus on what matters most: pursuing dreams, making memories, and probably bigger messes than we’ve ever seen.”
I’m a big believer in businesses with massive visions like that, supported by business models and roadmaps to get them there. Think Fuse or Varda. Matic fits that mold. So know that when you buy a home-cleaning robot, you’re accelerating the humanoid future.
(5) Snack Makers Are Removing Fake Colors From Processed Foods
Deena Shanker for Bloomberg
PepsiCo is working to remove artificial dyes across its brands to meet rising consumer demand for natural products, despite the challenges.
Better For You, so hot right now, Better For You.
Two weeks ago, the natural foods Super Bowl, Natural Foods Expo West, kicked off. If you’ve never been or haven’t heard of it, it’s an absolutely massive (and overwhelming) display of the latest CPG innovations and trends. Think protein-everything, functional sodas, newfound supplements…think creatine gummies. The Expo has gotten bigger and bigger each year, in line with both consumer demand for better-for-you options and the growing consumer realization that our food system in the U.S. is pretty fucked. And despite all of the showcasing brands and all of the hype, the truth is that a few companies in the country still drive the vast majority of purchasing volume. The top five firms—Nestlé, PepsiCo, The Kraft Heinz Company, General Mills, and Unilever — control a substantial portion of the market. And I think it’s wrong to view these companies as evil. It’s that they’re operating in a system with poorly aligned incentive structures and serving consumers that have been poorly educated.
There’s really two ways to change this:
Government Intervention: The government can come in and mandate certain protocols and requirements and restrictions. The U.S. government has, for better or worse, been pretty laissez faire on this front historically. One of the hopes of the new Administration is that RFK’s MAHA agenda will take a more front footed approach to policing Big Food. I am all for banning Red 40 in my chips. But I don’t necessarily want RFK telling me exactly what I can and cannot indulge in.
Consumer Trends + Product Innovation: The other way to change the system is to change consumer demand and then offering consumers new products that better align with that new demand. All easier said than done. How do you change consumer demand? A mix of education, scare tactics, marketing, expanded distribution, and product innovation.
The company highlighted in the Bloomberg article, Pepsico, presents a good example how both agents of change are acting out in the real world. Fears of the governments potential regulation is forcing the company to proactively remove food dangerous dyes from its chips and eventually its entire product portfolio. And just this week, the company finalized a deal to acquire emerging BFY soda company Poppi for $1.95B — a signal that Pepsico knows there is growing and potentially canniballizing demand for a healthier soda option than its Pepsi pops. Pepsico is a co, and they don’t care if you’re spending money slurping sugary sodas or potentially gut healing beverages, as long as your spending money with them.
Bonus: On Modality Commoditization
Elliot Hershberg for Century of Bio
But I want you take a leap with me that will potentially annoy some drug developers: no discovery technology is immune from the inescapable pull towards commoditization—like virtually every other technology. For big and small molecules alike, once discovery technologies—whether it’s high-throughput screening, in silico screening, in vitro or in vivo models, or an analytical assay—become standardized, companies around the world will compete to offer them as a service. This is The Long Arc of Modality Commoditization. Over time, revolutionary ideas become universal building blocks for the next wave of innovation.
Packy again. Nothing gets me fired up like 1) strategic implications of commoditization, 2) Vertical Integrators, and 3) new Elliot Hershberg essays. So we hit the trifecta here. And this is legitimately one of my favorite Elliot essays, a glimpse into what makes him so good.
He argues that as drug discovery technologies get commoditized (today, drug discovery is happening on the cheap in China, and US Pharma is sourcing molecules there), biotech may have to compete more like traditional businesses. Instead of relying on a Cornered Resource in the form of IP as its only moat, biotech companies will need to dig moats like the rest of us. Because of data flywheels in algorithm-designed drugs, we may see the first drugs that benefit from Network Economies. Process Power and Brand are also on the 7 Powers table.
But Elliot also thinks there’s an opportunity for new entrants to use modern technology to take on sclerotic (a word I stole from him) Pharma incumbents and “establish themselves as an entirely new generation of pharmaceutical company.” In other words, he writes that we might start to see Bio Vertical Integrators.
As he points out, the path is a hard one. Capital formation will be hard. Doing a lot of things well, all at once, will be hard. Building a standalone business instead of selling assets to Big Pharma will be hard. But, he writes, “If the companies solving these global problems establish moats in new ways, we could see the first $1T+ biotech firms come into existence.”
Long story short: commoditized drug discovery is good for those of us who take medicine to get healthy. And if it’s short-term painful for certain companies in the space, it may spur creative destruction in the industry that’s good for us all.
Double Bonus: Narendra Modi: Prime Minister of India - Power, Democracy, War & Peace | Lex Fridman Podcast
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi went on Lex Fridman this week for a three hour long conversation about his life, worldview, India, and the state of the world today. Despite some fair criticisms, I’ve long been an admirer of Modi, after all he is the leader of the largest democracy in human history and has done a pretty darn good job of governing India over the last 12 years. But, admittedly, I have never heard him talk before. He governs in Hindi and his mother tongue is Gujarati. Lex now does this cool thing, in partnership with Eleven Labs, to dub foreign language conversations into English in a way that seems to capture and translate the original essence of the conversation. You don’t really hear modern American politicians speak the way Modi does and its quite refreshing. If you have a few hours to kill this week, highly recommend.
Have a great weekend y’all.
We’ll be back in your inbox next week.
Thanks for reading,
Packy + Dan
Thank you, optimistic news is sorely needed at this time 🫡
Appreciate the shoutout!