funding

Pieter Levels talks at Dojo Bali about building startups without venture capital through bootstrapping, persistence and learning many skills as a generalist. He reviews his own past projects.

The Hated One argues that Kurzgesagt acts as a propaganda vehicle for its billionaire-linked sponsors, citing funding it received. The video prompted a response from Kurzgesagt.

Seven-minute footage of Fred Rogers testifying before a US Senate subcommittee in 1969 to defend federal funding for the new Corporation for Public Broadcasting. A skeptical Senator Pastore starts out abrasive and is won over during Rogers' brief, calm testimony.

Steve Blank's Computer History Museum lecture argues that Silicon Valley's roots lie in WWII radar and electronic warfare work, Stanford's Fred Terman and Cold War military funding rather than the semiconductor alone.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on state lotteries. It argues that the claim that lotteries fund education is misleading, because the money is fungible and often diverted to general funds.

Alan Kay speaks at the DEMO Founder School session on why real progress takes invention rather than incremental innovation. He argues for problem-oriented thinking and long-term research funding.

Sabine Hossenfelder explains why she left academia, criticizing its incentives, funding and career structure. She gives a personal account of the social problems in science.

Sabine Hossenfelder reads a confidential email and uses it to explain her worries about academia and incentives in theoretical physics research. She ties it to her earlier Nature Physics comment on research quality.

Dave Jones of EEVblog debunks the Solar Roadways project, which raised millions through Indiegogo and government funding. He works through the solar generation and LED power calculations to show the idea isn't viable.

A long interview with Elon Musk at Gigafactory Texas on Tesla's early days, covering why electric vehicles, who founded Tesla, founder departures, Roadster engineering and early funding.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on standardized testing in American schools. It covers how tests drive school funding, the achievement gap, and the testing industry around companies like Pearson.

Evan Czaplicki, creator of Elm, examines how programming languages are funded. He looks at where compiler engineers' salaries come from, why Go has about 5 engineers while Dart has about 30, and how this limits language design.

David Heinemeier Hansson's opening keynote at RailsConf 2019 argues against the expectation of payment for open source work, drawing on his experience releasing Rails. It also includes lighter asides about the industry.

Chase Adam, founder of the nonprofit Watsi, speaks at Startup School 2013 about building a nonprofit startup.

A documentary about Riot Entertainment, a Finnish dot-com-era startup that raised millions in funding and then collapsed. It follows the hype-driven rise and implosion of the company.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on cities spending public money on privately owned sports stadiums, including how tax-exempt municipal bonds subsidize them.

A John Oliver Last Week Tonight segment on America's crumbling infrastructure and why maintenance is neglected and underfunded. It mixes comedy with real examples such as aging bridges and dams.

Captain Disillusion debunks the Cicret Bracelet, a crowdfunded wearable that claimed to project a touchscreen onto the wrist. He looks at the concept, design, execution and fundraising.

Thunderf00t debunks the Fontus self-filling water bottle, arguing that pulling meaningful amounts of water from air with a small solar-powered device is thermodynamically impractical.

Thunderf00t debunks the Waterseer, a crowdfunded device that claims to condense drinking water from the air using cool ground. He argues the physics does not support its claims.

In this TED talk, Lawrence Lessig argues that American politics is corrupted by Congress's dependence on funding from a tiny fraction of citizens. He uses rapid-fire visuals and calls for a bipartisan push to reclaim the Republic.

Robert Bussard's 2006 Google Tech Talk on inertial electrostatic confinement fusion, a compact approach he argued could be cheap and clean, using boron-hydrogen fuel without neutron radiation. It runs about 93 minutes and covers the physics, funding history and his proposed development path.

Full recording of Elon Musk's January 2015 presentation and Q&A at the SpaceX Seattle office announcement. He lays out plans for a satellite constellation to provide low-latency global internet, tied to funding Mars ambitions. Pauses between questions have been edited out.

Yannic Kilcher interviews Emad Mostaque, founder of Stability AI, about the company's funding, its mission, and the release of Stable Diffusion. Topics include access to compute, handling harmful outputs, and avoiding the corrupting influence of profit.

Scott Manley analyzes the idea of putting data centers in orbit, prompted by Lumen Orbit's funding. He examines the claimed advantage of constant solar power against launch cost, cooling and mass.

A BBC Four documentary following Alan Bond and Reaction Engines as they pursue the Skylon spaceplane and its SABRE engine. It covers the history from HOTOL and the heat-exchanger breakthrough.

A 2006 Google Tech Talk by Robert Bussard on inertial electrostatic confinement (polywell) fusion as a cheap, clean alternative to conventional thermonuclear reactors. He argues it could be made viable with modest funding.

Strong Towns explains the Growth Ponzi Scheme, in which post-war suburban growth takes on infrastructure costs that new development must keep funding. It describes why municipal finances become insolvent.

Robert Scoble interviews Paul Graham at Y Combinator's Mountain View headquarters as 36 new startups debut. They discuss what YC is, and Graham's no-assholes rule.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment covers the working conditions of US air traffic controllers and the understaffing, outdated equipment (including floppy disks) and funding structure of the FAA. It mixes comedy with policy criticism.

A short clip from the show Silicon Valley in which the Pied Piper team meets a money guy who offers advice about having no revenue.

A Last Week Tonight segment on the tension between public and private weather forecasting, including NOAA data and AccuWeather's lobbying against free public weather data.

A Russian-language investigation by Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation into Dmitry Medvedev's alleged corruption network. It documents charities funding palaces, vineyards and yachts, and has English subtitles available.

Rhonda Patrick gives an IHMC talk on how genetic variation affects micronutrient absorption and metabolism, and how diet changes gene expression. It also covers epigenetics, including heritable changes, and stress tolerance.

Boston Dynamics shows WildCat, a four-legged robot built with DARPA funding that reached about 19 mph using bounding and galloping gaits.