Four For Friday | June 20, 2025
LF178 | Global transformations, Mullet Capitalism, Broccoli vs microplastitcs, Neya + IdeaBrowser
Welcome to this week’s Four For Friday. Bit of a late sending as have just arrived in Japan. Anyway, here’s four things that have piqued my interest this week, together with a bonus: AI Tip of The Week.
1. Future Project - Global Transformations
An interesting project from Germany capturing Megatrends happening around the world and then feeding them into emerging Transformations.
It starts with six key megatrends, which it defines as ongoing, long-term and measurable, and are not that surprising:
Connectivity: The increasing networking through digitalization.
Climate Change: The consequences of climate change.
Individualization: The growing diversity of individual lifestyles.
Demographic Shift: The aging and growing world population.
Urbanization: The increasing urbanization.
Globalization: The global economic and cultural networking.
And then maps them against six transformations:
These Transformations are ‘not mere shifts in numbers and statistics, but qualitative developments with a sense of direction’. They arise from societal challenges and unmet needs, and are: dynamic and open-ended, arise from interactions between society, technology and culture and offer concrete scope for action for companies, politicians and individuals. The six Transformations they lay out are:
Human Digitality. This transformation is about what happens when we develop a new relationship with the digital world. It’s not just about extremes of denial or a slavish embrace of data and its algorithms, but a new more mature connection. ‘Human digitality opens up entirely new creative spaces – by putting people back at the center. It transforms our perspective on digitality and enables a holistic view of the effects that digital technologies have on individuals and organizations.”
Conscious Economy. This boldly suggests the ability to transition away from our profit maximizing economic system and towards one that delivers what citizens need. ‘Instead of ignoring the problems of natural and human exploitation and stubbornly pursuing the obsession with "more and more," circular, regenerative, and inclusive business models focus on increasing the actual quality of life. Thus, the transformation of the Conscious Economy returns the next working society to its original purpose: fulfilling human needs and enabling cultural evolution.
Co-Society. Another ambitious transformation, one that shifts from the increasing polarization and disconnects to reconnecting with our common, shared human values. ‘After the end of unbridled hyper-individualization, the co-society once again enables compromises between different worldviews and lifestyles – and, with its focus on a progressive "we" culture, opens up future paths to an inclusive, post-polarized society.’
Mindshift Revolution. A call here for a shift away from what can be perceived as ideals - thinner, more beautiful people, for example - towards more fundamental values of what good looks like allowing individuals to thrive, overcoming sexism, racism and ageism: ‘Biographies become more fluid and more strongly shaped by individual life choices and experiences than by universally accepted norms. […] the self-conscious questioning of hierarchies reduces many social inequalities – and leads to a more just society.’
Glocalization. This is responding to the unraveling of the current model of globalization and a response to recognize and support local competences and diversity, while also not losing touch with modernity. ‘With the growing awareness of the mutual interdependence of global and local forces, the principle of glocalization is taking hold, transforming the global determinism of hyperglobalization.’
Eco Transition. This transformation predicts the end of the green backlash and the embrace of co-existence with the planetary boundaries. ‘ecological responsibility opens up space for the qualitative development of conscious, more mindful lifestyles whose quality of life is achieved in harmony with the environment.’
The So What? We need bold ideas to take us forward at a time when things seem to be spiralling in a bad direction. This distinction between megatrends that are inexorable and these transformations that are both unpredictable and under our control gives us agency, and something to aim at.
2. Mullet Capital
That feeling when… somebody puts their finger on an emergent feeling you can almost touch, but haven’t quite nailed down. A few months ago (it seems longer) Andrej Karpathy christened the term vibe coding and that’s since become a Big Thing. For me, Mullet Capitalists, the neologism coined by Mario Gabriele, is equally impactful. He describes it as…
‘a new wave of firms with a traditional “boring” business in the front and a venture bonanza in the back. They represent an intriguing rebundling of the VC product at a time when the broader asset class reckons with a potential “extinction event” that may cull more than 50% of managers.’
He cites examples such as Not Boring Capital (a fund enabled by a newsletter), 20VC (a fund that emerged from a podcast) and The Cannon Project (a fund enabled by a recruitment business). The common thread here is that an engaged community is acting as a channel for the fund .
Mario links this with the trends of an existential shift in VC, but I think it’s a standalone trend . Building a community to getting deeper understanding of customers and partners, more data and a natural channel to market for your other products feels like a smart way to lower costs of acquisition, as long as the different elements align with each other.
The So What? Community has always been valuable. The smart operators are figuring out how to now capture that value.
3. Broccoli flushes out microplastics, possibly
A fascinating self-experimentat by a true longevity geek Jon Brudvig who was shocked (like we all should be) to learn that we have a plastic spoon-sized amount of microplastics in our brain. Unlike most of us, he’s figured out a supplement-based protocol that seems to be effective at clearing these pesky interlopers: based on Sulforaphane, extracted from broccoli.
He used Blueprint’s microplastics diagnostic to test himself after taking a high dose - and it seemed to first flush the plastics out into the blood, then get rid of them.
Obviously, with N of 1 your mileage may vary, but fun to see this is a plausible strategy.
The So What? Expect more citizen science experiments as frustrated consumers and biohackers move faster than regulators. A platform to help the Jons of the world aggregate and share such findings would be powerful.
4. Neya - AI for neighbours
A new startup from the UK that uses AI to operate a lightweight community marketplace - making it easier to find and connect with other people locally, for example helping you borrow a ladder.
The So What? Combining the personalization opportunities of AI with local engagement sounds great - will be following with interest how they overcome the challenges of trust, usability and the ‘cold-start’ problem.
Bonus AI Tip of the Week: Idea Browser
A constantly updated, rotating list of promising business ideas from the prodigiously productive AI pioneer Greg Isenberg. For those information junkies who don’t get enough good ideas.
That’s all for now; happy weekend everyone.
- Stephen