Magnets, Movies & the Metaverse - OSV in July
Magnets, Movies & the Metaverse - OSV in July
What you might have missed...
Hello, friends.
The hottest news from July is that our merry band of 2024 Fellows is now complete.
Next-generation magnets. Build-your-own hands. Viral music sensations. Plant memory sticks. Deep-tech documentaries. Language resuscitation. This year’s cohort is mind-bogglingly diverse — a bounty of passion projects united by pragmatic optimism, pioneering spirit, and insatiable curiosity.
Actively working on something as we speak? Guiltily harboring a dormant project in your desk drawer? Nurturing the spark of inspiration but struggling to cause it to ignite? Honestly, just 90 seconds of browsing our full list of Fellows could give you the adrenaline shot required to take things stratospheric. You’ve got five months before our next application window opens. Tinker away, and come January, you might find yourself just a 10-minute application away from $100,000 and a year to dedicate to the problem that gets you out of bed every morning.
The OSV presses have been running hot. In July, we also welcomed Benjamin Reinhardt to our Advisory Council. Ben’s CV reads like a shopping list of ‘cool-sounding things’ — he has a Ph.D. in space robotics, a rare B.Sc. in history (not the usual B.A.), worked at NASA, and once founded a startup building robotics for eldercare.
Ben first came to our attention through his research organization, Speculative Technologies, which is dedicated to unlocking new manufacturing technologies and materials. A nice dash of in-franchise continuity (who needs Deadpool & Wolverine): Ben received an O’Shaughnessy Grant last year, and earlier this year, Speculative Technologies awarded a Brains Fellowship to our aforementioned magnet maestro Michelle Wang. As part of our Advisory Council, Ben will advise on research and developments in engineering, new materials, and the broader manufacturing sector.
In other OSVerse news:
Flipside, Chris Wilcha’s fantastic new film (executive produced by Jim and released in association with Infinite Films) is now available for streaming. You can now watch the movie described as a “hidden gem,” “poignant,” and “mesmerizing" from the comfort of your home.
Interintellect is entering its “Hope Axis” era.
Prophetic AI’s ‘Halo’ lucid dream device snagged an honorable mention at the San Francisco Design Week Awards. Both Interintellect and Prophetic are OSV portfolio companies.
Nicolás Forero led a great OSV Book Club session, exploring Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense by Infinite Loops alumni Rory Sutherland (1, 2, 3). You can join our book club (for free) by heading over to Discord using this link.
Infinite Loops
You feeling lucky, punk?
If your answer was somewhere between “Yes” and “No,” then you may want to mosey over to Jim’s essay What Kind of Lucky Are You? Here’s a taster:
“I am one of the luckiest people in history.
To be born into a prosperous American family in 1960 with smart parents is to start life on third base. The odds against my very existence are astronomical (Google tells me around 1 in 400 trillion).
But I think there’s more to luck than that.”
If you’ve ever faced failure (who hasn’t?), you’ll also appreciate July’s installment of our ongoing “Infinite Loops Guide To…” series. Our latest features curated insights on defeat from Jimmy Soni, Dr. Julie Gurner, Alex Komoroske, and more. OK, we’re biased, but this series really is worth your time—it’s a product of hundreds of hours spent sifting through 200+ conversations to distill the most actionable insights. Each post takes less than 5 minutes to read but can offer a life’s worth of advice.
And, of course, Jim’s Two Thoughts series continues, delivering doses of wisdom straight to your inbox every Sunday. Be warned: these quotes have been known to trigger insatiable curiosity. (Oh, and… what’s this?!)
Finally, Jim welcomed a whiplash-inducing range of guests on the podcast this month, including (deep breath):
The enigmatic YouTuber The Fourth Way on the life-altering philosophies of two curiously under-studied philosophers.
Founder and Thiel Fellow Noor Siddiqui on helping people have healthy babies.
Storyteller supreme Nat Eliason on his wild ride through the madcap world of crypto.
Metaverse maven Matthew Ball on… all things Metaverse (naturally).
Personalized mentorship pioneer Audrey Wisch on reorientating education around curiosity and creativity.
As ever, for root access to your humanOS, you can dig into our back catalog of 226 episodes (and counting).
That’s a wrap for July. We’ve got lots of goodies for you in August, including the return of Gurwinder Bhogal to Infinite Loops and the launch of a new essay series spotlighting talented writers from across the OSVerse.
Ad Astra, Ex Libra 📚🚀