Shakespeare and 'Succession'

The modern-day King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, and more

Hope your week has started on a good note. NVIDIA will publish its quarterly earnings later today. Whether you are an investor or not, it will be an adventurous week.

The Debate of the Week

Dhruva and I discussed the VC conundrum. Seven of the world’s eight most highly-valued public companies were once venture capital-based tech startups. Venture capital and technology are eating the world. But what is VC, really? How does it work, and how does it make decisions about which startups to invest in?

As we celebrate billion-dollar startups and as venture capitalists become media gurus and pundits, it’s time to take a step back and ask some difficult questions. Has the growth of venture capital been good for entrepreneurship and innovation? What are the drawbacks and limitations of venture capital? And what kinds of tech entrepreneurship could we imagine beyond venture capital?

Dr. Anamika

Our chief mentor’s work became a question of “Who wants to be a millionaire” (Kaun Banega Crorepati), and we found out through a random WhatsApp message. C’est la vie.

Shakespeare and 'Succession'

At its core, "Succession" is a contemporary King Lear, with Logan Roy as the aging monarch dividing his kingdom. The parallels are striking: Logan, like Lear, is a temperamental patriarch whose decision to step down (or not) from his media empire sets off a chain reaction of betrayal, manipulation, and familial strife. The Roy siblings—Kendall, Shiv, and Roman—mirror Lear's daughters in their desperate bids for power and approval.