It’s been so long I don’t even remember when I was first introduced to Bayesian statistics, but I believe it was when I got my masters’ in Decision Sciences at the London School of Economics. While frequentist statistics was what I’d always learned growing up (and which is obviously still valuable), learning about Bayesian approaches filled a gap I hadn’t known existed.

Since I finally shut down Seed-DB last year, I’ve finally had some time to build the projects that have been kicking around in my head – this is the first to launch. There are a lot of features I’d like to develop, but in the spirit of “launch early” (and often?), I’m posting about it now, and I welcome any and all feedback. [Contact page or tweet at me.]

(I’d like to thank the newest crop of AI tools, without which it would have taken me easily 100 times as long in order to get this off the ground!)

#1 – A+++ Strongly Recommend

The Power Broker – Robert Caro

There’s a reason most people don’t even try to read this book – it’s over 1100 pages, and the paperback version weighs over 4 pounds. But MY GOD is it a fantastic read!

Robert Caro began his career as an investigative reporter, and his writing style is really engaging like the best investigative pieces. Yes, he goes into incredible detail in certain parts of the book that feels… unnecessary sometimes, but each chapter is juicy.

I learned so much about political power, organizational power, how cities get built, the history of New York City/State, and about how BIG things get built. It’s all about Robert Moses, who built so much of the physical infrastructure in/around New York City and Long Island (parks, highways, bridges, tunnels) — all from unelected positions of power that he held for 40+ years. (!)

If you’re interested in this book, I’d also recommend the 99 percent invisible podcast which did a Power Broker audio book club.

Non-Fiction

Who is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service – Michael Lewis

I love Michael Lewis’ writing, and really appreciate him diving into government employees, highlighting people that are doing outstanding work. (And often doing work that only the government can do.)

Apple in China – Patrick McGee

This was a really fascinating book. I knew that Apple really relies on manufacturing in China, but the history of how that developed, and the consequences of it were new to me. I’ve heard from friends at Apple that argue with some of the details in the book, but the overall themes are consistent and important.

The Endurance Artist: Lazarus Lake, the Barkley & a Race with No End – Jared Beasley

This book features Laz, the creator of the most insanely difficult running races that have ever existed: the Barkley Marathons and the Backyard Ultramarathon. Laz’s races push every person to the absolute limit of the pain and suffering they’re willing and able to endure.

Check out an amazing documentary of the Barkley Marathons here:

Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America’s Justice Department – Carol Leonnig

If there’s one branch of government that can counter the worst impulses of the Trump administration, it’s the judicial branch. And if there’s one part of the executive branch that has professional ethics and standards, it’s the Justice Department. This book deals with what happened in the Justice Department during Trump’s first administration, and then Biden’s administration, and then the start of Trump’s second administration. It’s a wild tale, with tales of true heroism but also decisions in hindsight that look very unwise. I learned a lot.

Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier – Kevin Kelly

This was originally a blog post, but makes an excellent little book with nuggets of wisdom. I ended up highlighting and consolidating the parts that really spoke to me.

Fiction

Silo series – Hugh Howey

After watching the first two series on Apple TV, I decided to read the book series. (The first two series of the TV match up to book #1 in the series; the next two series match up to book #2 and #3, apparently.) If you like the series, you’ll definitely like the books.

Dungeon Crawler Carl series – Matt Dinniman

This is another fun series – it’s a RPG (Role Playing Game) come to life as a series of novels – aka “LitRPG”. It’s not particularly thought-provoking, but it’s a hell of a fun read.

In July 2012, I launched Seed-DB, a database of seed accelerators around the world and the companies in which they invested. I had originally started compiling the data in Google spreadsheets when I was writing my MBA thesis, and wanted to quantify the nascent accelerator ecosystem. Over time I kept getting feedback that the data was valuable to people, and decided to launch a standalone webapp to make it easier to access.

Building Seed-DB was a very meaningful milestone in my life. Building a webapp by myself was a fun challenge, and proved I could take an idea and implement it. (I have training in aerospace and nuclear engineering; not computer/software engineering, but taught myself how.) Over time, Seed-DB became an important resource for founders, accelerators, and others looking to understand the ecosystem. I’m proud to say that Seed-DB data was the source for infographics in the Economist and was cited in the New York Times and Techcrunch! (It also led to two different jobs.)

But everything must end, and it’s time for me to shut down Seed-DB. I haven’t had the time to update the data in a few years, even for the most high-profile accelerators. Additionally, the infrastructure behind the site needs a total overhaul, which I just don’t have the time or heart to do anymore. Finally, the seed accelerator ecosystem is just much more known – warts and all. The site isn’t as valuable or insightful as it was when it launched.

Thank you to everyone who’s given me feedback or who’s shared data with me – from accelerators to investors and founders themselves. I also owe a huge thank you to Crunchbase who gave me API access for many years to get the funding data that appeared on Seed-DB. Thank you to everyone for your support.

Biology & AI

A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains – Max Bennett

I couldn’t recommend this book more highly if you’re interested in the evolution of humanity, the nature of intelligence, or the similarities and differences between human intelligence and artificial intelligence.

Immune: A Journey Into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive – Philipp Dettmer

Obviously COVID brought a lot of attention to immunology, but at a pretty surface level. I found this book illuminating and hugely educational in understanding what’s going on inside our bodies, particularly when we get sick.

Fiction

Remarkably Bright Creatures – Shelby Van Pelt

Cloud Cuckoo Land – Anthony Doerr

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow – Gabrielle Zevin

Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn (Yes, I know this is over 10 years old, but I still enjoyed it – the book is better than the film.)

General Non-Fiction

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI – David Grann

This book was fascinating, troubling, and much more. I really recommend it.

Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing – Peter Robison

This book was written before the door blew off a 737 MAX, but that just emphasizes the validity of this book. It’s a real cautionary tale for any company.

The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis – George Stephanopoulos and Lisa Dickey

I was a little wary of this book, but each chapter focused on a President and a specific story of the White House Situation Room and that person. What I found fascinating is just how… unsophisticated the tools and technology was for so long!

Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions – John Grisham and Jim McCloskey

The criminal justice system gets things wrong – this book focuses on ten stories that are absolutely horrific. It’s a must-read.

Quick background

In my previous three marathons, I ran into the same problem – around mile 20/21, I hit the wall and had to start walking periodically for the rest of the race. It just felt like my body fell apart, and I always chalked it up to “that’s what hitting the wall feels like.” This got increasingly frustrating – even when I really controlled my pace in the first part of the race on a particularly easy (downhill!) course, this still happened.

Luckily, I’d been working online with a coach (HUGE shout out to Matt Day from McMillan) and he pointed out that I needed to think about electrolytes!

(This is where I should point out that I’d only ever drunk water on long runs & races – I avoided any electrolytes because I never wanted to drink something that I hadn’t used in training. Nothing new on race day!)

Fueling with carbs – what I was already doing

In the course of training for previous races, I’d already figured out how to get the carbs I needed. I learned to properly eat / carb load in the day or two before long runs (say over ten miles). I also learned about running gels and got into the habit of ingesting a gel about every 30 minutes in a long run or race (starting about an hour in). This approach worked. [Runner’s World article detailing this]

Fueling with electrolytes – the missing piece of the puzzle

My coach Matt pointed me in the direction of a free online calculator to help me understand what I needed – check it out here. My results:

With my existing gels, I was 44g of carbs per hour already – a good chunk of what I needed. And I had been fine with overall fluid intake – that 15 oz/hour was probably what I was getting at the water stations.

HOWEVER! The gels I had been were only giving me ~100 mg of sodium per hour – just 20% of what I needed. (1000mg/32oz = 500mg/16oz, so ~500mg/hour)

The NYC Marathon offers Gatorade Endurance Formula Lemon Lime drinks at aid stations. When I looked up the key stats, I saw that this provides (per 12 oz):

• 300mg of sodium
• 22g of carbs

Additionally, I found alternate gels – Gu Roctane Energy gels – that would provide 250 mg/hour of sodium (versus the 100 mg/hour from my previous gets).

Putting this together, if I drank about the same amount (roughly 12-15 oz of fluids per hour spread across various aid stations) and used the Roctane Energy gels, I would be taking in:

• 66 g of carbs per hour (44 from gels, 22 from Gatorade)
• 550 mg of sodium per hour (250 from gels, 300 from Gatorade)

Results – the 2024 NYC Marathon

For the first time ever, I ran an entire marathon without needing to walk a step!

I’ll confess as I got to miles 20 and 21 in the Bronx, I was pretty anxious – this was the point in my previous marathons (and training runs!) where I had previously hit that wall. But as I got through those miles and crossed into Manhattan I got increasingly confident that I’d solved this problem and was ready to go. (Seeing my family cheer me on around mile 22 was also a huge mood lift!)

Instead of falling apart on Fifth Avenue as the hill rises along Central Park, I felt strong! I was energized as I passed loads of people, including those other runners that were forced to walk. Those final miles in Central Park to the finish were electric – I felt strong and the race photos with some of my biggest smiles are along this stretch of the course.

Instead of my body feeling like I was on the ragged edge (despite my legs feeling fine), I ended the race feeling strong… but with very tired legs!

Going forward from here

I’m honestly much more excited to run more marathons in the future – being able to crack this bonking problem is incredibly motivating! Now that I know I can finish strong, I can train with a new purpose. And I know I’m absolutely capable of dropping a lot more time off my new marathon PB/PR.

I’m definitely going to tinker with the specific gels and electrolytes I use, when I take them, etc. Toward the end of the race I was getting annoyed by always taking electrolyte, and could/should have taken water once or twice instead. But I’ve found a solid platform of an approach that will serve me well.

I’m writing this because there are a bunch of resources about getting carbs during the race, I haven’t seen the same about electrolytes. If you feel like you’re fit enough to run a full marathon but have had problems “hitting the wall” harder than you like, I strongly encourage you to use a calculator like I did and figure out if you need to change your approach to electrolytes in your racing.

Specifically, this chart compares growth of deliveries quarter-by-quarter for each company based on when each started production (Tesla = 2012 Q3, Rivian = 2021 Q3).

Rivian continues to deliver more vehicles per quarter than Tesla at the equivalent point in development. Additionally, Rivian is producing three vehicles: the R1S (SUV), the R1T (pickup truck), and two sizes of delivery vans. Based on Rivian’s guidance for 2024 (purple dashed line on the chart), this will continue for probably at least another 6-12 months.

To be fair to Tesla, Rivian has taken advantage of Tesla proving that there’s a market for electric vehicles. Rivian was likely taken more seriously by suppliers because at least there was a new all-EV car manufacturer that had been founded in recent history.

Rivian, however, started production at possibly the worst time: just as the economy saw rocketing inflation and supply chain problems throughout the automotive sector. The effects of this certainly hit their early financial results, but they’ve been making great strides in efficiency and cost-cutting, particularly with the Generation 2 updated vehicles.

Looking forward to 2025-2026

Rivian is aiming to start production of R2 vehicles in the first half of 2026. This would mean that their lower-cost / mid-range vehicle would start deliveries approximately 3-6 months ahead of Tesla at the equivalent point in development.

Tesla started Model 3 deliveries in Q3 of 2017, which aligns to Year 6 – Quarter 1 in the timeline above. If Rivian starts deliveries in Q2 of 2026, that aligns to Year 5 – Quarter 4 on the same timeline.

With Rivian saying that they’re going to start R2 vehicle manufacturing at their existing Normal, IL plant, it certainly removes a lot of risk in achieving their goal of launching in the first half of 2026. There’s no risk of construction delays, no risk of poor knowledge transfer from experienced Rivian line workers, no risk of splitting effort across two very geographically-separated plants at a key milestone, etc.

That said, at some point Rivian will need to expand manufacturing space beyond the existing Normal, IL plant if they want to scale. (The existing plant can manufacture approximately 200k -ish vehicles per year; Tesla is currently manufacturing over 400k vehicles per quarter, over multiple plants.)

I believe the interesting test for Rivian will be their ability to ramp manufacturing in 2025. Will they be able to use the newly updated Generation 2 R1 platform to drive more throughput in manufacturing? How will preparations for manufacturing the R2 platform affect throughput?

Tesla was able to continue increasing production of the Model S and Model X in the four quarters before launching the Model 3. Will Rivian be able to do the same, or will they be limited by factory space in Normal?

As a Rivian fan, I’m looking forward to seeing how the company will execute. (And really hoping they’re able to pull forward product development on the R3X – that’s a really exciting car!)

I’m very happy to say that earlier this year my wife and I finished electrifying our home and became a carbon-free household. We have gotten rid of all our natural gas appliances, and solar panels provide the power for our core electrical needs. Furthermore, we’ve signed up for a program so that all the electricity we need in excess of what our solar panels provide comes from clean energy sources.

Here’s what’s even better – electrifying all of these appliances has made for an objectively better home. Our home is a better living environment because we’ve upgraded each appliance – the fact that we’re doing our part to reduce CO2 emissions, the fact that we got a bunch of rebates in the process, and the fact that we’re going to have lower utility bills are great side benefits.

I’m going to use this blog to talk about our journey in going carbon-free. For more general advice, I’d strongly recommend checking out the materials from a non-profit called Rewiring America. They have a guide to “Electrify Everything in Your Home” that’s a fantastic resource.

I want to give particular thanks to Diane and Eric of emeraldECO. They served as consultants, advisors, and a general contractor for us for our entire electrification journey. If you’re on the Peninsula in the SF/Bay Area and want to electrify your home, I’d strongly recommend that you reach out to them. They were upfront with us about trade-offs, made recommendations that turned out to be very smart and valuable, and have made sure we’re getting all the possible rebates and benefits from the work.

In the coming days/weeks I plan on writing more about each part in electrifying a home, but here are the core building blocks that cover electrification. Please subscribe (in the blog sidebar) to get future posts by email.

Building blocks to electrifying our home

Electrical panel / Infrastructure

Our home is over 70 years old, and we needed to upgrade it from a 100 Amp panel to a 200 Amp panel. And because of renovations on our house over the years, this meant we needed to relocate where the wires from PG&E connected to our home.

Solar Panels

The previous owner of our home had contracted with Sunrun to lease solar panels, which we took over when we purchased our home. (I had previously purchased solar panels for our previous home; there are some trade-offs when considering leasing versus purchasing.) We’ve got a ~6kW system, which in the summer generates 33+ kWh/day and in the winter generates ~12 kWh/day.

Induction Range

We got rid of a gas range for an electric induction range. The experience has been fantastic. Induction ranges heat up incredibly quickly and have immediate and precise temperature control. What’s more is that it’s so much safer than a gas stove – my wife and I are far more willing to let our daughter cook on the induction range unsupervised (or lightly supervised), where that was never the case with our old gas range.

Heat Pump Water Heater

Fundamentally a water heater is a pretty simple appliance. But by upgrading to a heat pump water heater, we’ve gotten some great features like precise control over water temperatures, the ability to set schedules and preferences for when our water heater operates, etc. And it removes another source of burning gas from our home.

Heat Pump HVAC

Upgrading our furnace and A/C to a heat pump has been a massive win. Some of this is because our HVAC installer ensured that we had the correctly-sized air returns and ducting to support our home. Part of this was because our old A/C unit was on its last legs and barely provided any cooling at all.

The engineer in me loves the efficiency gains that come from heat pumps: instead of burning gas to heat the air, it just moves the hot air it captures from the outdoors to warm the air instead. Moving hot air requires FAR less energy than generating heat.

Electric Vehicle and EV Charger

We long wanted to get an electric vehicle, and got our Rivian R1S in May of 2023. As part of this whole project we wired in an EV Charger so we can charge our car at home (typically overnight) instead of ever going to a gas station. It’s a Level 2 charger (240V with a 60Amp breaker, with 48Amps continuous power).

The whole experience of owning and driving an electric vehicle has been transformative. Our Rivian has instant acceleration, is incredibly smooth, is super quiet, and just incredibly fun to drive.

Home Battery

Some people choose to install home batteries (like Tesla Powerwalls), but we chose not to. They’re pretty expensive, and we didn’t have a great place to physically locate it. Power outages happen in our neighborhood a couple times a year, but rarely last long enough for the math on a home battery to make sense.

Plus… the battery in our Rivian is roughly the size of 10 Tesla Powerwalls. Rivian has said they’re developing a new charger that will allow users to power their home from their Rivian. I definitely plan on purchasing that when available because the benefits in that case will most certainly make sense.

Clothes Dryer

I’m adding this for the people who read this who might have a gas-burning clothes dryer. (Apparently about 10% of Americans?) There are varying levels of efficiency in dryers, so pick the one that offers the best balance of electrical efficiency and performance that’s right for you.

But here’s what irritates me about college bowl games – there’s too damn many of them that they don’t mean much. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great around the holidays to watch football – especially when compared to the standard “nothing else good on television” fare. But I think it’s important for a football team to HAVE A WINNING RECORD to go to a bowl game.

Out of the 43 Bowl games being played by FBS schools, there are 11 bowl games where one or both teams don’t have a winning record. (Just like last year.) There are five teams below that have 7-5 (winning!) records, so 3 of the 11 games could be salvaged. That’s certainly what I would recommend.

The 2023 “Pity Bowls”

• two more quarters of data have been released
• I’ve updated the charts so they’re more clear on the timeline
• I’ve added Lucid Motors as an additional comparison

Production Ramp Data

Rivian continues to outpace Tesla’s production at the equivalent point in their histories, delivering >12.5k vehicles in Y2Q4, compared to Tesla’s production of >7.5k vehicles. Rivian also continues to state they’re on track to produce 50,000 vehicles in 2023, which is modeled with the “Rivian – projected” line in the chart below. (In a very naive sense of “modeled”.) Rivian should continue to outpace Tesla’s manufacturing benchmark for many quarters to come.

Lucid Motors unfortunately continues to lag behind both Tesla and Rivian at the equivalent point, only delivering 1404 vehicles in the last quarter. At the same point in their history, Rivian delivered >7900 vehicles and Tesla delivered >6400 vehicles. Lucid’s vehicles seem to be pretty fantastic and I’ve definitely seen some on the roads in the SF/Bay Area. I sincerely hope they’re able to grow.

The thing I’m perhaps most excited about for the future of Rivian is that they’re producing at least 4 different vehicles across 2 different platforms. Consumers can purchase the R1T (pickup) or R1S (SUV), and Amazon is purchasing thousands of delivery vans across two different models. At the same point in their history, Tesla was only producing the Model S.

That Rivian has managed to continue a production ramp despite the complexity of multiple vehicles and platforms speaks well to their future ability to manage a growing family of vehicles and options.

Not a neutral observer

I need to admit I’m not a neutral observer. A long-time good friend of mine was an early hire at Rivian so I’ve had positive feelings for the company for years. Also, I’m one of those 12.5k deliveries for Rivian in Q2 2023! My wife and I took delivery of our R1S (Forest Green, Forest Edge interior, 21″ wheels) in May, and we absolutely love it.

I’ll outline the relevant early history of both companies below, and then get into the charts. While Rivian took much longer from its founding to unveiling its prototype vehicles, it’s now on a much faster production ramp than Tesla was at the same point in its history.

Tesla

Tesla was founded in 2003, and the Tesla Roadster started production in 2008. But the Roadster was a vehicle that was produced in partnership with Lotus cars; the Roadster was a (highly) modified Lotus Elise chassis. When compared to scalable vehicle production lines, it’s just not the same.

The true car company history of Tesla arguably starts in 2010, when Tesla bought their Fremont factory from Toyota. This was needed for the Tesla Model S, which had already been unveiled in 2009, and which started production in 2012. The Tesla Model S was the only vehicle Tesla manufactured from mid-2012 to mid-2015.

Rivian

Rivian was founded in 2009. It purchased its factory in Normal, Illinois from Mitsubushi in 2017, and unveiled the R1T pickup truck and R1S SUV in November 2018 at the LA Auto Show. Amazon invested in Rivian in 2019 and announced a deal to purchase 100k electric delivery vans (EDVs).

Rivian started production in mid-2021. This production was across two platforms and multiple individual vehicles: the consumer platform (R1T and R1S vehicles) as well as the EDV platform.

Tesla vs Rivian – indexing production ramps

I went back to press releases from both companies to get data on vehicle production. Tesla started manufacturing and delivering Tesla Model S’s in Q2 2012, but only started reporting production numbers starting in Q3 2012. Rivian started manufacturing and delivering R1Ts in Q3 2021, but only announced 2021 full-year production numbers, so I’ve assumed ~5% of the full-year production happened in Q3, with the balance in Q4.

Sync’ing this up, Tesla started mass production/delivery in Q3 2012, and Rivian started mass production/delivery in Q3 2021, nine years later. (x-axis for the chart below is indexed to Rivian’s timeline)

Tesla vs Rivian – comparison

Tesla was able to very quickly ramp to deliverying 5,000 vehicles (specifically just the Tesla Model S) per quarter. But from then, growth was slower, taking eight quarters (two years) to cross the 10,000 vehicles/quarter threshold.

Rivian’s ramp in year one has been slower, taking five quarters (versus two) to cross the 5,000 vehicles/quarter threshold. But again, Rivian has been producing five different vehicles across two different vehicle platforms. This accelerated in 2022, and Rivian is also now on a much faster production ramp than Tesla was at the equivalent point in its history.

This is also on track to continue throughout 2023 and 2024. The red line above is my projections for Rivian growth, based on its expected 50,000 vehicle production in 2023 and extending that rate a bit further. (There are rumors that Rivian could potentially exceed this by 20% in 2023, too.)

Extending further into the future

Rivian’s factory in Normal, IL reportedly has a maximum production capacity of 200k vehicles/year, or 50k/quarter. If we take the (very bad, possibly low-balled) assumption of the expected production ramp from 2023 into the future and compare it to Tesla, you get this:

Tesla started scaling massively with the launch of the Model 3, which began deliveries in 2017 Q3. Just one year later (2018 Q3) Tesla was manufacturing more Model 3’s per quarter than Model S’s and Model X’s combined. Indexed to Rivian’s timeline, this is equivalent to launching a new vehicle platform in 2026 Q3 and scaling it by 2027 Q3.

Interestingly, Rivian has already started construction on a new production plant in Georgia that (with the existing plant in Normal, IL) should allow the company to grow to 600k vehicles/year, or 150k vehicles/quarter. It has also stated that they expect to launch the R2 platform (lower-priced vehicles, similar to Tesla Model 3/Y) in 2026 and specifically manufacture it at this Georgia plant.

The next 12-24 months at Rivian will be interesting – will they be able to keep growing the production rate? How long will it take to get the maximum possible production from the Normal, IL plant? Right now Rivian is producing more vehicles per quarter than Tesla at the equivalent point. If the company is able to launch the Georgia plant and start manufacturing the R2 platform there in 2026 as expected, they may be able to continue to beat the production benchmarks that Tesla has set over the last decade.