Four For Friday | Feb 9, 2024
Four For Friday | Feb 9, 2024
LF108 | Meta's AI boss on open source, French CEOs embrace longevity, SocGen's green bonds & longevity a key investment theme
Welcome to Looking Forward’s Four For Friday. Four things that have piqued my interest this week. Enjoy!
Yann LeCun on open source AI
TIME profiles Yann LeCun, one of the ‘godfathers’ of AI - a professor at NYU and Chief AI Scientist at Meta. He’s an outspoken advocate for open source models of AI - preferring that this powerful technology is in the hands of everyone rather than behind closed doors.
So the future has to be open source, if nothing else, for reasons of cultural diversity, democracy, diversity. We need a diverse AI assistant for the same reason we need a diverse press.”
French CEO group forms to address longevity
French boardrooms are taking longevity seriously. The CEOs of large French corps including L’Oréal and AXA have formed a new club to discuss longevity, ageism and drive positive change. They’re monitoring four KPIs and will report on progress:
Ratio of 50+ employees in total employee count
Number of training hours of 50+ workers as a percentage of total
Percentage of people 45+ recruited
Percentage of people 50+ who changed jobs
Societe Generale issues green bonds on Ethereum
One of Europe’s leading banks has issued a €10m green bond on Ethereum. This is part of an emerging wave of new blockchain-based green bonds that should both reduce costs of issuing and managing bonds and allow for greater transparency.
Longevity a key investment theme for 2024
A PWC-backed research group has identified investing in longevity a key investment theme for 2024.
While the US is further down the longevity trajectory (with windows for capital allocation into the venture capital, biotech, and consumer sectors), Europe also offers emerging opportunities in the medical tourism space. This element of the ‘consumerisation of healthcare’ trend also offers bright spots within Asia, including dairy farms in emerging Asia. One key aspect of investing in longevity relates to the sheer size and growth of the asset and wealth management industry.
That’s all for this week. As always, feedback welcome. Feel free to share insights or links of interest.
- Stephen