Hi, I'm Charles Roberts, uh, chief investment strategist and head of venture at ARC. Uh, backgroundwise, I was a surgeon, then moved into being a biotech entrepreneur, founded several different biotech companies, including mainly at the intersection between AI and genomics. At ARC, uh, primarily I lead venture where we have a broad deep tech portfolio across private and some public companies.I work on both strategic side and day-to-day operational management leadership of the team and working very closely w ...

Economic Outlook - The employment report is weaker than expected due to downward revisions, raising recession fears, but the analysis suggests a "rolling recession" [2] - The expectation is for a strong recovery, possibly starting as a "rolling recovery", with upside surprises in real growth and productivity, and downside surprises on inflation by the midterm elections next year [5][6] - Geopolitical risks remain, particularly concerning Russia-Ukraine, China, and Mexico, but the biggest uncertainty is the Federal Reserve's (Fed) policy [7][8] Fiscal Policy - Year-to-date deficit as a percentage of GDP has shrunk from approximately 73% to 62% [10] - Tariffs are annualizing at an estimated $450 billion per year, potentially leading to a deficit of roughly 47% of GDP [10] - The analysis suggests that the deficit as a percentage of GDP could reach 3% by the end of 2026, two years ahead of the Treasury Secretary's objective [11][12] - Approximately 75% of capital spending will benefit from permanent expensing, which is expected to attract manufacturing back to the United States and boost productivity [18] - Factoring in expensing, the US corporate tax rate could effectively drop to the 12-14% range [19] Monetary Policy - Despite Chairman Powell's hawkish tone, the data suggests the Fed may ease, with odds for a rate cut in September up to 88% and a 50 basis point rate cut at approximately 25% [4] - Real private domestic final sales are growing at approximately 1%, indicating cautious consumer behavior and a rising savings rate, potentially crossing 5% this year [21][22] - The 2-year Treasury yield less the 3-month Treasury yield is below zero, indicating restrictive monetary policy, which historically precedes recessions [26] - Truflation, which measures thousands of items in real time, suggests that inflation may stabilize and then decline towards or below 2% [33][24] Market Indicators - Economic policy uncertainty reached unprecedented levels during tariff turmoil, even higher than during the 2008-2009 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic [36] - Revisions to non-farm payrolls were extreme, typically seen only in recessions, confirming the "rolling recession" [47] - Federal government employees are down by 84000 year-to-date, with an expected additional 150000 layoffs by the end of September, potentially impacting consumer confidence [48][49] - The consumer confidence index shows a decline in jobs being easy to get, suggesting potential economic weakness [51][52]

Company Vision & Strategy - ARK Invest was founded to move away from benchmark-sensitive strategies towards investing in companies driving technological revolution [1][2] - The company aims to fulfill an unmet need by focusing on companies transforming the world [2] Investment Focus - The firm emphasizes investment in companies that are shaping the future through technological advancements [2] - ARK Invest believes in the importance of investing in companies that will "make the new world work" [2]

Layer 2 Scaling Solutions - Ethereum layer 2 solutions have reduced transaction costs by 10-20x, leading to over 85% of Ethereum transactions occurring on these cheaper layer 2s [2][3] - Base, incubated by Coinbase, dominates layer 2 activity, accounting for over 50% of active users, transactions, and revenue [6] - Competition in the layer 2 space is increasing with Kraken announcing INC, Robinhood launching its own layer 2 on the Arbitrum stack, and Securityize partnering with Athena to launch Converge [6][7] - Worldcoin is also building its layer 2 on the Optimism stack [8] Decentralized Applications (dApps) and Exchanges (DEXs) - Spot volume of decentralized applications has more than doubled, approaching 20% of the market share compared to centralized counterparts [9] - Decentralized exchanges are 5-10x more efficient than centralized exchanges, achieving similar volume with significantly fewer employees [11] - Decentralized exchange volume has continued to increase, reaching 25-30% of centralized exchange volume [12] Solana's Performance and Developer Activity - Solana has experienced a significant turnaround, achieving 4-5x greater transaction throughput than Ethereum and its layer 2s combined, reaching almost 800 TPS [14] - Solana has surpassed Ethereum in attracting net new crypto developers [15] - Solana is focused on improving its base layer with upgrades like Fire Dancer and Alpenlow [19]

Market Dynamics - The market is different now, more institutional-driven than retail-driven [1] - The biggest change from the last cycle is the spot ETF [1] - There are spot ETFs for major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and ETH [2] - Hybrid private fund ETFs exist for SOL and other assets [2] - The inflows into these assets are very large relative to their size [2]

Coinbase's Base Ecosystem - Coinbase is developing the Base ecosystem with three components: Base chain (Layer 2 for performance), Base build (developer toolkit), and Base app (non-custodial wallet)[1][2][3] - The Base app aims to onboard more users to the Base ecosystem by integrating trading, USDC transfers, and content creation features [4][5] - Base app integrates NFTs via Zora protocol and social feeds via Farcaster, creating a hybrid platform resembling TikTok, Twitter, and a trading/payment app [7][8][9][10] Market Competition and Trends - The market is moving towards tying real-time news and content to financial markets [17][18] - Integrating social media and financial news is in the experimentation phase, with prediction markets showing product-market fit [28][29] - Real-time news from social media platforms is becoming integral to trading, as users on these platforms often have news before major outlets [30] Retail and Institutional Involvement - The current crypto market is more institutional-driven due to the spot ETFs for major cryptocurrencies [24] - Retail involvement is not yet significant, as indicated by the performance of altcoins and Google search trends [25][26]

People make the difference. Meet Stuart Forbes, sharing his background and how he's contributing to ARK's mission. ...

Hi, my name is Ren Lei and I'm the global head of strategic partnerships. I'm responsible for managing and expanding our strategic relationships with distribution partners uh and exploring new partnerships in untapped markets around the world. My goal is to enable all investors globally from institutional allocators like pension funds or sovereign wealth funds to financial advisors all the way down to individual retail investors the ability to invest in ARC's disruptive innovation focused strategies.I came ...

I always learn from SpaceX. So the company that I deeply admire and of course you know I have Elon's picture everywhere when I whenever I think that I'm working too hard I'm looking at this picture and I realize that I'm slacking. Look at how they're building rockets.So you have the Falcon series that works extremely well. So you get the payload to the to the to to the to to to orbit and beyond and it works but at the same time you are working on Starship right and you are working on next generation Starshi ...

Labor Market Trends - The Wall Street Journal published an article highlighting the difficulty college graduates face in securing employment [1] - AI is negatively impacting entry-level job opportunities [1] - The unemployment rate has increased from a recent low of 4% to over 6%, specifically 63% or 64% [1] - The labor differential indicates it is becoming more challenging to find employment [2] - Continuing unemployment claims are rising, suggesting that individuals who are already unemployed are struggling to find new jobs [2] Job Seeker Strategies - Individuals considering a job change or seeking employment should prioritize focusing on AI-related skills [2]