Four For Friday | January 10, 2025
LF155 | Transforming oceans, Blue Zone Britain, new types of impact networks, tontines for college kids, + creating marketing funnels with AI
Welcome to Looking Forward’s Four For Friday. Four things that have piqued my interest this week, together with a bonus: AI Tip of The Week. Enjoy!
Case study of ocean transformation
In-depth case study about Builders Vision (BV), a funding vehicle of Lukas Walton (i.e. Walmart family).
Builders Vision is the $4+ billion family office launched by Lukas Walton in 2021. They’ve deployed over $260 million to 158 ocean-focused organizations while helping catalyze $2.2 billion in total sector investment.
This is a summary of their overall approach, centered on a North Star vision, with long-term outcomes, short term outcomes and then key strategies: fisheries, aquaculture, climate resilience, ocean plastics and system building.
Operating through multiple vehicles—including a $1.7 billion foundation endowment and a catalytic investment arm that makes $500k - $3m direct investments—BV coordinates philanthropic grants, venture capital, and market-rate investments to drive systemic change across sustainable fisheries, aquaculture, climate resilience, and ocean plastics. The businesses have distinct risk-return profiles and operating models, but are aligned under a shared "North Star" vision.
The report shows how this approach shows promise in addressing complex environmental challenges, and it explores associated challenges, such as managing internal team dynamics and measuring impact in a complex system.
The So What? Useful lessons for other impact-minded investors for how to leverage and coordinate multiple asset classes in pursuit of an overarching mission.
Blue Zone Britain
How could the NHS, the largest employer in Europe, become a vector for change in the transformation of health in the UK (from reactive to proactive), and a broader societal transformation towards health?
For a start, this provocation suggests going well outside the boundaries of today’s healthcare systems (ie hospitals and primary docs) to share preventative health with the wider community.
Perhaps the broken state of the NHS in the UK currently (in a funding crisis and spiralling waitlists) makes this a burning platform and as such a higher chance that some of these ideas may just resonate with the bean counters…
The So What: A useful exercise to step back and ask how is society best served by its assets and services, rather than just assume something exists because it does.
Building an impact network with digital twins
A conversation with AI expert Ross Dawson and a group that is building a new form of impact network - one that brings together both experts and their digital twins to generate insights and work collaboratively on problem solving.
Innovators Kevin Clark and Kyle Shannon are aiming to harness collective intelligence through a hybrid digital twin model. These develop custom AI representations of their network of experts, which then engage in dynamic dialogues and creative collaboration, checking in with their humans on a regular basis. The exercise starting with in-depth interactive interviews, which transform fleeting thoughts into reflective documentation, with a view to leveraging the in-depth human, tacit knowledge that AI has yet to unlock.
Read this together with this report on how AI agents need to co-exist with Sims and Assistants.
The So What? The future of networks is hybrid, with increasingly capable AI agents operating as connectors, coordinators and Ambassadors.
Tontines for college kids
Regular LF readers will be aware of my love of tontines - a financing vehicle that could be used to pay for longer lives. This startup - Prospinity (h/t Aaron) - has just raised $2m for a student-focused version of that - you form a pool with a group of peers and each pledge to put in 10% of your income, and then get 10% of the income back. So it incentivises you form a group with other high earners - so you’re betting on your friends. In this way you’re motivated to have your fellow group members succeed as you share the winnings.
The So What: A novel approach to funding student debt, but something that could be applied to funding healthy longevity - let’s call it the Golden Girls Tontine…
Bonus - AI Tools of the Week
An AI tech stack for building marketing funnels to drive social change.
That’s all for this week. As always, feedback welcome. Feel free to share insights or links of interest.
- Stephen