Andrew Bennett
@andrewjb_
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trying to scale progress, quickly | @britishprogress @txp_io | ex vc @formventureshq & policy @institutegc
Joined April 2011
new essay:. Sovereign Albion. aka:.- why we need to rebuild a spiritual foundation for durable collective progress.- how the current aesthetics of progress are falling short (sorry anglofuturists).- what a mini pilgrimage taught me about Britain: who we are and who we need to be
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agree. i am more sympathetic to strategic investments than maybe @pdmsero is, but you can only invest in particular assets not just 'themes' or 'sectors'. so definitions & allocation strategy really matter, but are often overlooked by govts.
We also briefly discussed this in our own piece; the disconnect between "strategic thinking" and practical implementation is now so broad it is arguably the case that we have no idea what the impact of proposed interventions is likely to be.
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RT @jackwiseman_: "The big fish will get bigger, the small fish will get smaller, and Starmer and Macron have a limited amount of time in w….
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Good piece from @leoringer & the @formventureshq crew:. we have too many definitions of what it means to be a “British” startup, which isn’t just a semantic issue: it directly confuses and constrains policy outcomes. more from @BritishProgress on this soon
Before reforming EIS, pushing more $$$ through the BBB, requiring pension funds to increase allocation to "British" private markets. we need to agree on a defn of a British co, and why supporting those cos (rather than cos in general) actually matters
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“In China, ‘win-win’ means China wins twice”.
strong recommend for @PatrickMcGee_’s new book, Apple in China. beyond great storytelling, it’s particularly interesting on the interdependence of active, hands-on FDI — ie Apple’s strong control over & training/development of outsourced manufacturers — as a lever China
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“substantial erosion of the UK’s capacity to respond to future shocks”. why sovereignty is about optionality:.
New: The OBR has issued a grim warning about the UK’s public finances. Debt is on track to hit 270% of GDP by 2070. The abandoning of planned spending reductions has substantially eroded the UK’s capacity to respond to shocks. Another big danger sign to Labour
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great piece — and pretty sure @buildexante might be one of the most interesting emerging managers globally.
Who will own our digital memory?. As AI platforms ask us to entrust our memories to them, we risk endless reintroductions to every AI or (worse) seeing our digital selves held hostage by a single AI overlord. 1st in a 2-part blog series up now on building an open architecture
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meta-comment: legacy, elite institutional comms is very poorly equipped to deal with asymmetric poasting warfare.
heard from multiple sources at the Turing that the leadership is trying to spin the Kyle letter as an endorsement of current practice - see for yourselves, it quite obviously isn’t.
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this is basically why I’ve been going harder on culture over last ~6 months. upstream cultural victory is essential to:. 1. raise ambition.2. find conspirators / building relationships beyond value exchange.3. coordinate at scale — ie. at the level of a nation — which is a.
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RT @phokarlsson: "Often, agency is almost gentle—an attunement to the world and the self, a feeling out the details of reality. " https://….
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RT @dc_lawrence: 🚧 A challenge for this Government, and for Britain: can we build a new runway in under four years?. Our answer? YES, but o….
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ironic that a major cause of this is repeatedly cost-minimising & efficiency-maxing, at the expense of building a resilient energy portfolio that keeps prices durably lower (cf. repeated delays to nuclear, or closing down gas storage during 2010s austerity).
Europe committing industrial suicide in one chart. But hey, who needs industry? Becoming an open-air museum for American tourists is also an option.
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Jack is doing heroic work rescuing the discourse on AI in UK. And thanks to @benyeohben, who wrote up great notes for anyone that missed it
Great evening at the @inferencemag debate on the potential for an intelligence explosion. Excellent contributions from @tylercowen, @TomDavidsonX, @NPCollapse and Mike Webb. Bravo @jackwiseman_ for organising and moderating!
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RT @matthewclifford: Great evening at the @inferencemag debate on the potential for an intelligence explosion. Excellent contributions from….
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I repeat
Spotify should buy Substack & cement European cultural moat.
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RT @matthewclifford: 🚨🚨Today we begin the search for @ARIA_research's next CEO. It's not often you get to hire for a role that you believe….
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this is basically why I’ve been going harder on culture over last ~6 months. upstream cultural victory is essential to:. 1. raise ambition.2. find conspirators / building relationships beyond value exchange.3. coordinate at scale — ie. at the level of a nation — which is a.
You cannot fix a spiritual crisis with economic incentives. This isn’t the beginning of a serious problem. It’s the result.
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strong recommend for @PatrickMcGee_’s new book, Apple in China. beyond great storytelling, it’s particularly interesting on the interdependence of active, hands-on FDI — ie Apple’s strong control over & training/development of outsourced manufacturers — as a lever China
v good from @benthompson on the underrated force of Western orgs (eg Apple) wielding their buying power to grow Chinese industrial base. ie yes ‘Made in China 2025’ was remarkably well executed, but supply side investment / subsidy doesn’t generate durable capability without
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