Interessant3 #152 | 🧠 Fertility & IQ, ⚡ Nat Friedman’s Beliefs, 💸 Startup Decks
Three Interesting Things for W/C 2025-08-03
International meta-analysis of the relationship between fertility and intelligence
🧠 The study draws on 610 datasets (n ≈ 1.2m) to test whether people with higher or lower intelligence have more children across 65 countries.
📉 Results suggest global IQ is declining by ~1.1 points per decade to 2100, with about one-third of the decline happening within countries.
🌍 Patterns differ: strongest negative IQ–fertility link in Latin America, Iran, and Turkey; weakest (near zero) in Scandinavia and Switzerland.
⚠️ Authors caution that poor data quality in some countries tempers confidence—measurement issues may blur real differences.
🔄 National IQ correlates moderately with fertility differentials (r = .51), linking societal development to demographic selection.
Countries ranked by IQ-fertility link. 🔗 International meta-analysis of the relationship between fertility and intelligence – OpenPsych (PDF)
Nat Friedman - Some Things I Believe
⚡ Friedman (former GitHub CEO, now AI investor) sets out a philosophy of speed, ambition, and intellectual independence.
🚀 Core stance: technology is humanity’s lever to reshape the universe, and progress depends on moving fast and pursuing big ideas.
🏗️ He rejects the efficient market hypothesis as misleading, suggesting opportunity lies where consensus fails.
🧩 Culture: fewer, sharper teams; empower great individuals; accept mistakes if they yield “uncorrelated excellence.”
🧭 A recurring theme is dopamine: true builders derive motivation from improving ideas and creating impact, not external validation.
Barney Hussey-Yeo —Sharing Startup Pitch Decks (2016–2022)
💸 The Cleo founder published all his fundraising decks, from a modest £600k seed (2016) to an $80m Series C (2022).
📊 Each deck reflects shifting investor climates: early enthusiasm at EF Demo Day, frictionless pre-emptions for Seed & Series A, and a gruelling Series B.
📉 Series B highlights: even strong growth plus U.S. traction didn’t guarantee easy money- timing and narrative mattered.
💡 His guiding principle across decks: build an AI agent that makes money work for ordinary people - big vision, clearly expressed.
Join us next week for three more intriguing topics that challenge the norm and expand your horizons! ✌️
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