A reminder for new readers. That Was The Week collects the best writing on critical issues in tech, startups, and venture capital. I selected the articles because they are of interest. The selections often include things I entirely disagree with. But they express common opinions, or they provoke me to think. The articles are only snippets. Click on the headline to go to the original. I express my point of view in the editorial and the weekly video below. This Week’s Audio: Thanks To This Week’s Contributors: @jeffbeckervc, @eshap, @stevesi, @gruber, @daringfireball, @SamuelStolton, @leah_nylen, @mattmday, @chrisheuer, @JoannaStern, @Om, @sarahpereztc, @GeorgeNHammond, @Tabby_Kinder, @NicholasMegaw, @PeterJ_Walker, @SteveAbbott415, @adamlashinsky Contents * Editorial:  * Essays of the Week * Changing the Customer of Venture Capital (Jeff Becker) * What A Drag It Is (Evan Shapiro) * Building Under Regulation (Steven Sinovsky) * Apple’s Plans for the DMA in the European Union (John Gruber) * Amazon Drops iRobot Deal; Roomba Maker Cuts 31% of Staff (By Samuel Stolton, Leah Nylen, and Matt Day) * Envisioning the Future of Human Work in the Age of AI: The 2024 Forecast (Chris Heuer) * Video of the Week * Joanna Stern Wears a Vision Pro for 24 Hours * Product of the Week * The Vision Pro (Daring Fireball) * Apple’s Vision Pro -The Meta-Review. (Om Malik) * My 4 magic moments with Vision Pro (Om Malik) * Apple Vision Pro Review: The Best Headset Yet Is Just a Glimpse of the Future (Joanna Stern) * News Of the Week * Spotify calls Apple’s DMA compliance plan ‘extortion’ and a ‘complete and total farce’ (Sarah Perez) * Investors raise billions to buy discounted stakes in start-ups (George Hammond, Tabby Kinder, Nicholas Megaw) * Founders: getting to the next venture stage may take longer than you expect (Peter Walker) * The State of the SaaS Capital Markets: A Look Back at 2023 and Look Forward to 2024 (STEVE ABBOTT Partner, Capital Markets, KEVIN BURKE Partner, Strategy) * PayPal is laying off 2,500 employees (Pranav Dixit) * Startup of the Week * Zum Raises $140M At $1.3B Valuation To Help Kids Get to School Faster With AI (Chris Metinko) * X of the Week * For a moment, I almost felt sorry for Mark Zuckerberg. (Adam Lashinsky) Editorial You didn’t hear it here first but Apple’s Vision Pro is a hit.Some wonderful essays in this week’s newsletter. I lead with Jeff Becker’s look at venture capital, focusing on who the customer is. The question “Who is the customer?” is crucial for any product. The answer is easy when the product is an asset class - the customer is the person investing money. Yet most of the venture world pretends that the customer is the entrepreneur. In reality, the entrepreneur is a supplier. She or He supplies opportunity, commitment, and execution; the goal is to grow value by investing customer cash into that supply. Now it is easy to understand why venture investors sometimes describe the recipient of funding as the customer. It is important that the company feels served by the VC. But serving an investee company is clearly a mission carried out for the VC fund investors, the real customer. Jeff is addressing a real problem - how to best invest in the supply. I will leave you to read his essay and ponder it, but he proposes a radical re-think of how to do early-stage investing, and for the most part, it argues for a more liberal spread of cash, in larger numbers, to far more founders. It's interesting, to say the least. Evan Shapiro focuses on the rapid aging of the US population. He makes a strong case: Since 2019, America’s population has grown by 7.8 million. Yet, the US now has 2.7 million fewer kids under 15 than it did in 2019. Meanwhile, there are now 7.1 million more Americans 65-80 than five years ago. America now has half a million fewer people under 40 than it did in 2019 and almost 8.4 million more people over 40. At a time when politicians from both sides are falli