Networked Conviction 005
The Flagship Pioneering Model
This is an entry in Networked Conviction: My Investing Journal; a weekly newsletter for my paying subscribers where I share portfolio updates (including current, future, and anti-portfolio mentions), Requests For Startups, and investing ideas. To access this newsletter weekly, subscribe here:
I’ve written before (a couple of times) about how much I love Disney. I feel the Spirit of God when I walk down Main Street in Disneyland. Call me a consumerist shill, but I can’t help it! There’s something special about the world building on display there.
One thing, in particular, that I would love to spend more time drilling into is Imagineering. Disney’s version of a captive skunkworks; a permanent, multidisciplinary studio where everything from artists to architects, mechanical engineers, software developers, storytellers, lighting designers, and on and on all come together to translate creativity into physical manifestations.
Imagineering has always struck me as one version of a common mechanism that have happened in some of the most compelling ideation organizations. From Bell Labs to Lockheed’s SkunkWorks to IBM’s Wild Ducks; finding a mechanism to translate uncertainty through the lens of creativity into a vessel of productivity.
Yet another discovery mechanism has been proven out comes from Flagship Pioneering; the biotech incubator of sorts that birthed a $75B portfolio that includes the likes of Moderna. That’s what has my investor brain itching today.
In a world of AI, we’re getting exposed to exponentially more uncertainty. Across categories, I’m seeing an incredibly compelling opportunity to replicate the Flagship Pioneering model within opportunity discovery for AI deployment. So that’s what I wanted to unpack today.
