Nathan Lustig

AI, Becoming Multiplanetary, the Fermi Paradox, SpaceX Tesla and Elon Musk on Wait But Why

Category : Personal Thoughts, Technology
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Every once in awhile I read something that leaves me thinking, wow! Something that completely changes my perspective or opens a door that was previously blocked off, or that I didn’t even know existed. Tim Urban’s Wait But Why blog is incredible, but his posts on Artificial Intelligence and Elon Musk’s drive to make us a multi planetary species are on another level. I read these posts about 3-4 months ago, but haven’t stopped thinking about them, and they’ve influenced my thinking on a variety of subjects.

The posts are long, but if you take the time to read them, they’re completely worth it. Urban’s descriptions and analogies are amazing and really help explain what’s going on to someone who didn’t know anything about the subject before hand. Here’s some notes (and highlights) from the AI posts. (more…)

Introducing Ttanti: Patagonian Wood Watches

Category : Chile, Latin America Startups and Investing, Magma Partners
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ttanti wood watch

I’m really excited to introduce Ttanti’s Travelers Collection, wood watches direct from Chile’s Patagonia. Max and Angel, have been working on Ttanti for 2+ years to make it a reality. Although its outside of our primarily tech focus at Magma, we loved the project and the team and decided to help out.

We’ve been working with Max and Angel for the better part of 18 months, helping them go from a 100% Chilean made prototype, to a Patagonian designed watch with a Swiss made body, all expertly finished off by hand by Chilean artisans. Ttanti is one of our portfolio companies that I’m most proud of because of how far they’ve come. (more…)

Magma At Two Years

Category : Latin America Startups and Investing, Magma Partners
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Two years ago my friend Diego introduced me to Francisco the head of one of Chile’s family offices. Francisco told us that he wanted to invest in startups and high growth small businesses not only because he thought Chile needed a fully private early stage startup fund to help entrepreneurs be successful, but also to potentially change how Chilean investors look at startups by showing them the way forward.

After working together for about six months, Francisco, Diego and I announced our first two investments, officially launching Magma Partners, a US$5M early stage investment fund powered 100% by capital from the three of us.

Our original plan was to invest in 4-6 companies per year, but we were inundated with qualified companies that needed capital, monitorship, connections and feedback from people who’d done it before. We received over 150 applications (more…)

The Best Thing a Chilean Can Do is to Leave Chile

Category : Chile
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After five years in Chile, I firmly believe that the best thing a Chilean can do to better his or her life is to leave Chile. Traveling is ok, but to get the full benefit, a Chilean should live and work abroad, ideally for at least a year. Working in another Latin American country is ok, but to get the full benefit, a Chilean should try to live and work in the US, Europe, China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand or another well developed country with a completely different culture and set of values. It’s easy to see the difference in attitude in a Chilean who’s been abroad and one who hasn’t.

Both upper class Chileans and non upper class Chileans should leave Chile, but for different reasons. For non-elite Chileans, their lives get instantly better getting out of Chile’s classist system. They instantly have more opportunity, are more likely to get evaluated for who they are, how smart they are and not their skin color, where they went to school or their last name. Non-elite Chileans quickly realize that lighter skin and blonde hair isn’t always aspirational in every part of the world. (more…)