Steve Jobs once said the difference between competing computers and the Mac was that the former involved people who wanted to do something great, but the Mac involved people who wanted to do something “insanely great”, and per Jobs “the difference showed”

The value of the top 20 US stocks is nearly as much as the next 480 largest companies (one of multiple reasons why you should probably be investing in an S&P 500 index fund to ensure you benefit from the top companies rather than hoping you choose the top 4% from the top 500).

From a recent study per Outside Magazine:

“The best predictors for how to live longer? Physical activity, followed by age, mobility problems, self-assessed health, diabetes, and smoking. Take a moment to let that sink in: how much and how vigorously you move are more important than how old you are as a predictor of the years you've got left.”

Quantum Computing progress, though just a milestone (not any near term practical outcomes from this milestone yet):

“Researchers at Google reached a major milestone in the race to build practical quantum computers, revealing a device…which performed a calculation in about 5 minutes. In contrast, a supercomputer would take 714 trillion times longer than the age of the universe, which is about 14 billion years old, to perform the same computation.”

If Taylor Swift offers you a job you should probably take it I guess…

The unfolding impact of increasing food delivery:

“Nearly three-quarters of restaurant meals are now consumed offsite…Casual restaurants are expansive, many with dining rooms big enough to accommodate 200 diners. The leases become burdens when no one is sitting in them-and spending on alcohol, which is a significant source of revenue for these places.”

Real picture of the Northern Lights

Christmas in New York

Health 2024 Progress:

• HIV drug: twice yearly drug reduced HIV infections in a trial to zero. Science called this “the breakthrough of the year”.
• Weight loss drugs took on the obesity crisis (affects over 1 billion people globally). GLP-1 therapies look set to become some of the most successful medicines in history
• We got better at detecting disease. An AI-led revolution in how we diagnose illness sped up, with a skin cancer-spotting handheld device, a model that detects disease from tongue colour and a system that finds hidden brain cancerin under ten seconds. ChatGPT-4 beat real doctors in a diagnosis test, and a tool used in 1,400 GP clinics boosted cancer detection in England. 
• Continued progress: Since the 1970s, immunization efforts have saved approximately 154 million lives
• Gene-editing left the lab and entered the real world. The first commercial CRISPR treatment started reaching sickle cell patients…There’s a way to go, and prices need to drop, but the turning points will keep coming: researchers have already wielded genetic scissors to ‘cut’ HIV out of cells

Energy & Climate 2024 Progress:

• Solar installations shattered records. The pace of deployment has become almost unfathomable - in 2010, it took a month to install a gigawatt, by 2016, a week, and in 2024, under a day. Solar has become not just the cheapest form of new electricity in history, but the fastest-growing energy technology ever deployed…now ahead of the trajectory required for net zero by 2050.   - Global battery storage capacity surged 76% in 2024, making investments in solar and wind energy much more attractive, and vice-versa. - The largest global grid infrastructure buildout since World War II gained momentum in 2024. The US invested billions of dollars in projects across 44 states. China spent a colossal $83 billion on transmission, and investment increased for Europe's ailing grids. This massive expansion of transmission capacity will be crucial for integrating the surge in renewable energy. - Concerns about the lack of critical materials evaporated. After years of warnings about the scarcity of metals, 2024 saw those fears largely dissipate. In just one year, the world's known lithium reserves increased by enough for 250 million EVs, cobalt by enough for 500 million EVs, nickel by enough for 600 million EVs, and copper by enough for 1.7 billion EVs. - China stunned analysts with an unprecedented clean energy rollout…This year the country will install around 100GW of wind, over 230GW of solar, and well over three million new charging points for electric vehicles, even as its commissioning of coal plants decelerates rapidly - China's EV boom is materially lowering gasoline demand…This rapid transition forced OPEC to cut forecasts for five straight months in the second half of the year. The implications are profound - China has driven 41% of global oil consumption growth for three decades. - India is emerging as a clean energy powerhouse…with renewables accounting for 99% of all new capacity installed between June and September 2024. Coal’s share of power generation fell below 50% for the first time since the 1960s. - We launched new machines for monitoring our would, and next year a constellation of satellites from Google will monitor Earth’s surface for wildfires as small as five square metres, catching them before they grow into forest-eating monsters

Society & Culture 2024 Progress:

• The world is getting better for the next generation in many dimensions: Four-fifths of the world’s 12-to 27-year-olds live in emerging economies, and they are richer, healthier, more educated, better informed and more connected than their parents.
  The LGBTQ+ community notched up some big wins. Thailand—home to over 70 million people—became the first country in Southeast Asia to legalise same-sex marriage, and Greece made history as the first Christian Orthodox-majority country to do the same. Namibia and Dominicastruck down colonial-era laws against same-sex relationships, South Korea ruled that gay couples are entitled to the same health insurance benefits as heterosexual couples. China recognised that a child can have two mothers for the first time, Israel ruled that LGBTQ couples can adopt and in Japan public support for gay marriage reached 70% following a series of high-profile court cases.

Science 2024 Progress:

• The James Webb Telescope found the farthest known galaxy
• Renewables made desalination cheaper, heralding a more secure water supply for farming (and drinking) in water-stressed regions

a16z 2025 focus areas

YC 2025 focus areas

In spite of the lack of AR/VR callouts, one of 2024's most significant technical accomplishments came from Apple in the form of its long-rumored Vision Pro headset. The below tweet from Benedict Evans captures the combination of the Apple Vision Pro’s simultaneous amazingness while lacking many if any ‘killer apps/experiences’ that will get the general public to buy and frequently use VR.

Areas called out by both a16z & YC 

• AI - Robotics - Crypto / Blockchains 

Interesting areas called out by 1 of the 2 VCs

• Nuclear energy - Space technologies 

Area not called out by either VC

• Augmented/virtual reality

Following up on last month’s transportation post that “the future of self driving cars are here but not evenly distributed”, the speed of rollout from SF, LA, and Phoenix to the next set of cities looks like it will be over a year out. This will still take some time…

It takes a long time to build things in certain places, but this extended time is not a law of physics. In fact it seems to be something humans at least in the US have made colossally slower over time, and a trend that we should be trying to reverse

Cruise transportation continues to grow