Common Magic@_CommonMagic

30 Jun 2023

Sarah Drinkwater 🔮@sarahdrinkwater

30 Jun 2023

So fun to join @Kieranleehill #20Angel pod for frank chat on angel investing + my new fund @_CommonMagic

If there's one thing I've put my 10k hours into, it's answering; "what IS community?"

Listen + tell me what you think of my current definition 🔥

open.spotify.com/episode/6kw0K8…

Sarah Drinkwater 🔮@sarahdrinkwater

Oct 26

Sarah Drinkwater 🔮@sarahdrinkwater

Oct 26

News

@_CommonMagic (population: 1) is doubling in size

I'm hiring a London based operating partner to run the machine behind the fund, systems to events to network

Come join: buildthemachine.commonmagic.xyz

Bonus points if you find the microsite's easter egg

Sarah Drinkwater 🔮@sarahdrinkwater

Oct 24

Object Zero

@Object_Zero_

Oct 23

Mask Off Moment

This is an anonymous account I use to post a bunch of deep tech content on X covering heavy industry, light industry, technology trends, industrial bottlenecks, weird explainers and esoteric insights. iykyk.

A lot of very talented people (many of whom run e saying please keep posting “this is the best content on X”. I get DMs from VCs asking about companies, and DMs from LPs asking about industrial and economic theories. This is all very flattering, and whilst I sometimes post a bit sporadically I do try and make the effort to tap out a new post most days.

The quality of people who follow @object_zero_ is frankly phenomenal, it’s a real privilege to have this channel in my pocket. 40k followers including world leaders, centi-billionaires, serial inventors and entrepreneurs, world renowned scientists, and engineers. I would say it’s a mix, but the reality is that it’s not a mix at all, it’s an extremely high mean and median.

I have posted about shipbuilding, nuclear power, the Kroll process, silicon carbide, laser interferometry, heavy steel forging, machine learning, design engineering, CFD, manufacturing methods, power transmission and HVDC. I post about energy and commodities and industry and global macroeconomics. I post about mines and prospecting, minerals on the sea bed and drilling and producing hydrocarbon basins.

Don’t worry… I’m not leaving. I’m not ill and I’m not asking for anything.

A quick apology… I would post here more often, except I don’t have the time. I am able to post with a bit more breadth and depth because I am genuinely engaged in these things. I don’t want to be presumptive, but I think the people who have reached out to talk to me about their work would attest to this.

I simplify a lot of the posts so I don’t collapse the audience, but if you reach out in the comments or DM you can get much sharper commentary.

So what is this post?

Well, it’s time that I start talking about what I am actually doing irl, who I am, what I am engaged in. Some people on X already know some loose details, some people have met me as Object Zero.

But irl, I work about 5,000 hours a year and have done so for 20 years, I believe hard work puts you in a privileged place. It changes you.

Over the years I’ve invented and developed new industrial technologies, I’ve built big things, I’ve executed major capital projects. I feel I understand what the world needs in the 2030s and where we are falling short.

If you believe you are capable of such things, then you have an obligation to society to go and do them.

I am confident I know what it’s possible to do, and what it takes to get it done.

I intend to solve our energy infrastructure, generation and transmission and the big BTM loads that are emerging.

I’ve already hired the best people in the world for this, people who have architected $6bn assets, people who have commanded $40bn fleets. I’ve hired the best research faculty from the best university.

This isn’t a game.

We’ve already built and tested the first prototypes, we are already completing the permission processes, the licences and the permits. All the elements already exist, it just needs 21st Century system integration.

Because technology has changed, the past is already obsolete, the genie is out of the bottle, the 21st century is getting built on a Western tech stack and/or an Eastern tech stack. There is no in between, there is no middle ground. Both sides have strengths and weaknesses, but if we want freedom we’re going to have to earn it again.

We are going to build the biggest products (by mass) that have ever been manufactured, we are going to build a lot of them.

They’re going to change the world, and we’re going to get more of this…

Sarah Drinkwater 🔮@sarahdrinkwater

Oct 23

Jake

@iamjakestream

Oct 21

x.com/i/article/2112…

Sarah Drinkwater 🔮@sarahdrinkwater

Oct 22

Ellipsus@ellipsus_writes

Oct 21

You unearthed our magic relic—Scribbles Font—and now you’re possessed, the words as though summoned from the depths…

In the spirit of sorcery, we’re keeping the incantations coming: enjoy EIGHT new free fonts, FOUR of which are ENTIRELY ILLEGIBLE… just the way you like them!
onospaced. Flow circular. Libre barcode. Yardings 13. and… Scribble.

Try ‘em out

#scribblefont #redacted

Sarah Drinkwater 🔮@sarahdrinkwater

Oct 20

shre

@theshre

Oct 19

We live in an incredible era. Every day something launches that looks wicked, and I feel like I’m constantly playing catch up just to keep up.

In a weird way, all of this has got me looking back at the earlier days of the internet, and wondering which lessons from that era still the idea behind Internet Icons at @meetgranola, a new event series celebrating the pioneers whose work still shapes the internet today.

First up in London 🇬🇧

- @EbenUpton, co-founder & CEO @Raspberry_Pi, the affordable little computer that got millions of kids (and plenty of grown-ups) tinkering, coding and building.

- Julia Whitney, who led design for the original BBC iPlayer during her eleven years at the BBC, as people’s media habits shifted from radio and TV to online, then mobile.

- @veen, co-founder & CEO of Typekit. Hard to imagine now, but websites used to be stuck with the same handful of fonts. Typekit changed that, and it’s part of the reason the web stopped looking so uniform and people could bring some individuality to their corner of it.

Sarah Drinkwater 🔮@sarahdrinkwater

Oct 5

Collibra@collibra

Oct 5

We've acquired trail ML, a Munich-based #AI governance company, to strengthen how we help organizations scale.

Read the full announcement: ow.ly/Ur5R50ZUrrf

#AIGovernance #EnterpriseAI

Sarah Drinkwater 🔮@sarahdrinkwater

Sep 30

Ellipsus@ellipsus_writes

Sep 30

Line go up big time. (Nearly 8M documents!) 😍

Btw, if you’re not already following us on Instagram and Tiktok, consider it!

Memes, product vids, community takes—we’re sharing it all.

Instagram: instagram.com/ellipsuswrites
Tiktok: tiktok.com/@ellipsus_writ…

Sarah Drinkwater 🔮@sarahdrinkwater

Sep 29

Lukas Ziegler

@lukas_m_ziegler

Sep 28

The factory arrives in a shipping container! 🏗️

I had a chance to meet and talk to Mollie Claypool, CEO and co-founder of @_auar, in London.

What they ship to a builder's site is a robotic microfactory inside a container.

It builds the entire structure of a home, and Mollie n't heard before: anything from a single storey up to six or seven.

Her framing is industrialised production delivered on site, on demand, wherever it's needed and when it's needed.

The software is called MasterBuilder, and she calls it the brain of the microfactory. It takes a home builder's design, translates it into everything the microfactory needs to manufacture it, then drives the production itself.

The part I pushed on is why the facility doesn't look like conventional industrial automation, and the answer turned out to be the material.

Timber has bow. It has twist. It has bits taken out of it. Every board is slightly wrong in its own way, and a fixed program has no answer for that.

MasterBuilder senses the environment and the material it's touching, and reacts in real time to whatever is actually in front of it.

That's the line between automation and physical AI, drawn in a material people have been building with for thousands of years.

Thanks Mollie for the time, and for explaining it that clearly 👏🏼

Always hypnotizing to see @ABBRobotics robots work in new industries ;)

~~

♻️ Join the weekly robotics newsletter, and never miss any news → ziegler.substack.com

Sarah Drinkwater 🔮@sarahdrinkwater

Sep 28

Dan Gray

@credistick

Sep 27

For 13 years, the UK has regulated alternative investment funds, including venture capital, with a view to protecting investors — without exceptions for strategy.

The result is that failure has become more costly, barriers to entry are higher, and failure no less common.

This the UK venture industry, which we would like to see corrected.

Consider the debut funds of many legendary firms, and how many were in the $5–10M "micro VC" range.

Indeed, @seedcamp's Fund I was just €2.5M, and their Fund II just €5.2M; they are now one of the most important early-stage firms in Europe.

That small initial scale is what allowed LPs to test their ability without putting too much at risk; the power of cheap experiments with huge upside. It also enables a broader distribution of capital; casting a wider net.

Today, micro VC is effectively prohibited in the UK, because of the cost imposed by regulation.

For example, admin and compliance would consume about 20% of a £5M fund, and about 11% of a £10M fund — versus 3.5–6% for a US equivalent.

This cost raises the hurdle for viable fund size, concentrating capital into fewer firms with a broadly lower risk appetite and weaker coverage. It is a structural leakage of value.

The ironic result of legislation intended to protect investors.

However, there is a solution:

The Exempt Reporting Adviser regime was desgined precisely to eliminate this burden in the US, and that ecosystem has since benefitted from a fertile market for small and emerging managers — broadly outperforming their established peers.

Applying a similar concept to the UK would be straightforward, essentially cost-free, and actually improve the regulator's view of the market.

This is the basic outline of our proposal, as a response to the current AIFM consultations.

We have prepared a policy document and an open letter, signed by organisations across the industry, including:

- @joinef
- @formventureshq
- @Mountside_V
- @Beauhurst
- @isomercapital
- @AntlerGlobal
- @seedcamp
- @MozillaVentures
- @joinsequel
- ...and many more.

If the UK is to meet the stated goal of "growth in every postcode", or growth in ANY postcode, it is vital that opportunities like this (sensible deregulation to boost growth) are seized.

Read more here: blog.joinodin.com/p/reforming-uk…

Sign the letter: aifm.joinodin.com

Sarah Drinkwater 🔮@sarahdrinkwater

Sep 16

Ivan Burazin

@ivanburazin

Sep 15

The GPU market right now is pure financial engineering.

You can't get them on demand. So you sign a 3-year contract. But to get that contract, you need to put 30% down upfront.

Most companies can't do that. So they find someone who can.

- that person puts down your 30%
- you sign the 3 year contract
- your payments cover the entire cost of the GPU plus some
- the person who put down your deposit owns the gpu outright

So basically they took on zero hardware risk, got paid back entirely through your contract, and even kept the asset at the end.

It's not a chip shortage anymore. Everywhere I see it's a capital access problem.

If you have the 30% money, you're literally printing it right now. If you don't, you can't even get in the door.

Charlie 'Ramen Space’ Ward 🍜 (ramenspace.com)

@charlierward

Sep 3

Joe Reeve - 🇬🇧/acc

@isnit0

Sep 1

In just 5 days, over 1,000 optimists will gather for Britain's most optimistic gathering in a generation: The Optimistic Picnic.

If you haven't already:
1. Sign up: luma.com/pic-nic
2. Invite your friends and family
3. Register to volunteer

Sarah Drinkwater 🔮@sarahdrinkwater

Aug 12

aishwarya🍎

@aishdoingthings

Aug 11

back with more confessions 🤫

this week with @sarahdrinkwater prev of Omidyar Network on power and patronage

analogue.press/p/confessions-…

Superteam UK

@SuperteamUK

Aug 11

Joe Reeve - 🇬🇧/acc

@isnit0

Jul 21

On the 5th of September, I'm throwing the most optimistic gathering London has ever seen - a giant picnic in Hyde Park for everyone who's tired of being told the future is doomed.

There won't be any speeches, or an agenda. Just bring a blanket, some food, and someone who needs o you by: @ForestCityUK @lfg_uk @unicorn_mafia @Londonmaxxing @effectiveaccel @_CommonMagic @vcodersglobal @DeepTechLondon @LouisElton96 @sotalikesfuture

Sarah Drinkwater 🔮@sarahdrinkwater

Aug 5

Maya Bakhai 🌶️

@MayaBakhai

Aug 3

my new investment thesis is to fund TRUST. everything is a scam right now and i'm sure the pendulum will swing back hard. What are tools/products/devices that give consumers and businesses a sense of trust?