The Chomp #053

Joining Bloomberg Beta!

Hey Everyone,

Welcome back to The Chomp—your weekly dose of the best strategic thinking content and top emerging business trends from the internet and beyond.

If you’ve been sent this email and you’re not a subscriber, you can join by clicking on the blue button below. 

With that, let’s dive into it.

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**Some News**

As we head into year two of The Chomp, I have some exciting news to share! I’ve made a jump to early-stage venture capital and have joined the incredible team at Bloomberg Beta to focus on investing in founders and companies defining the future of work. I’m thrilled about this move and breaking into a world I’ve been excited about entering for quite some time. More on my thoughts about joining Bloomberg Beta below.

What does this mean for The Chomp?

In all honesty, I’m not entirely sure yet. The newsletter will definitely continue, but it might start to look a bit different. I undoubtedly will start to write more about areas related to those I’m researching and working on at Bloomberg Beta. The format might switch up again at some point, but that’s still TBD.

In the near term, the cadence will likely shift a bit or issues will be a bit shorter. I’m entirely focused on getting up to speed at Bloomberg Beta at the moment, and the newsletter will need to take a backseat to that while I get comfortable in my new role. If you bear with me for the next couple of months, I do not doubt that The Chomp will start to re-emerge in 2021 with more valuable insights than ever.

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Quick Bite

Joining Bloomberg Beta!

Last week, I joined the incredible team at Bloomberg Beta to work alongside a world-class group of investors with unique and diverse backgrounds. I’ll be working closely with Karin Klein in New York to invest in the future of work, along with Roy Bahat, James Cham, Minn Kim, Harley Sugarman, Lisa Wehden, Angela Martin, and Maria Sharp.

Over the past eight years, Bloomberg Beta has deployed capital across three funds and built a robust portfolio of companies focused on improving the future of work. At Bloomberg Beta, we're driven by a North Star of founder NPS with a focus on investing in early-stage founders and startups building technologies that are transforming the way we work.

As I’ve become better acquainted with the team over the past couple of months, I’ve felt increasingly inspired by the enormity of their ambitions and efforts. At Bloomberg Beta, there is a profound belief that technology will continue to change the way business works. While technology has come to guide our personal lives over the past 20 years, it has been slower to arrive at work. This differs from the historical norm, where technology has typically arrived at work before coming home.

At Bloomberg Beta, we strongly believe that technology at work will catch up and become the soil in which many of the most exciting new technologies will find their most interesting applications. We also believe, undoubtedly, that founders with diverse backgrounds will lead the companies delivering these technologies. In sharing this belief, I couldn’t be more excited to be part of a team that’s making a concerted effort to back founders from underrepresented backgrounds.

To date, 2020 has been one of the most unusual and challenging years in recent history. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, various facets of our lives have fundamentally changed—in ways both good and bad. For many of us, work has been one of the most profound changes. Due to COVID, remote work was accelerated forward at a pace not imaginable by its foremost enthusiasts.

While the future remains uncertain, I firmly believe that we’re headed towards a world where working in an office five days a week is no longer the norm. As of now, knowledge workers have been the main beneficiaries of remote and distributed work. Many folks working in other verticals simply aren’t able to do their job from home yet. While this will always be true for certain jobs, I envision a future where distributed work becomes commonplace for the vast majority of workers. To enable this, we’ll need better solutions and continued advancements in technology.

In joining Bloomberg Beta, it’s now my job to help propel the advancement of these technologies. Despite the many challenges and roadblocks that lay ahead, I’m more excited now than ever for the opportunity to start on this journey.

*While my scope at Bloomberg Beta will be broad, I’m eager to explore the following areas. I’d love to hear from anyone working in these spaces.

• Low/no-code

• Platforms and tools enabling solopreneurs and creators

• Tools for distributed and remote work

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Chum Bucket

• We’re Never Going Back (Not Boring)

• Earnestness (Paul Graham)

• Welcome to Your Bland New World (Bloomberg)

• Tobi Lutke Interview (The Observer Effect)

• 2021 Tech IPO Preview (The Information)

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Tweet of the Week

logan bartlett @loganbartlett

FML.. Burning Man wasn’t even good that year

Song of the Week

Apple Music Link

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Books

Currently Reading

Recently Read

• I finally finished up Grant after chugging through it over the past couple of months. At 1,097 pages in length, it certainly doesn’t skirt any details on the whirlwind life of Ulysses S. Grant. In Grant, Ron Chernow does an epic job of chronicling the—often misunderstood—life and legacy of America’s 18th President and Civil War hero. While I wouldn’t quite put Chernow on the pedal stool of Robert Caro, he’s right up there with other great modern biographers like Walter Isaacson. Despite its length, I remained engaged throughout the book and would highly recommend Grant to any American history buffs as well as fans of politics and military history more generally. (4.5/5)

Parting Thoughts

This Week in History

• On December 17, 1903. Prville and Wilbur Wright made their famous first flight with a heavier than air, powered aircraft. The first flight lasted just about 12 seconds. (Source)

“The straightforward and good person should be like a smelly goat‚ you know when they are in the room with you."

— Marcus Aurelius

If you found something that piqued your interest this week, please help me out in expanding the reach of The Chomp by forwarding it along to a friend or sharing it with others in your network. Until next week.

-CM

This newsletter is created and authored by Cody McCauley and is published and provided for informational purposes only. The information in the newsletter solely constitutes Cody’s own opinions.