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I can’t think of anything worse for your brain than TikTok, IG Reels, & YT Shorts. It completely rots your mind & attention span. The way we now look at cigarettes for the body is the way we’ll eventually look at algorithmic short-form video for the mind. Avoid it completely.

Introductions are the dark art of fundraising: (a) who introduces you (b) under what narrative (c) to which partner These factors matter more than any other variable, outside the state of the company. In rare circumstances, powerful intros can even override everything else.

Talked to close VC friend who led 2 Series B's this summer, some notes: -both co's @ $20M+ rev growing 2x, each raised < than $30m previously -at B co's need to show path to profitability (b/c next rounds have shut down) -valuations for AI native co's totally diff vs rest

There is a real "Series A crunch" Previously ~30% of startups got to a series A in 2 years. In recent vintages only ~15% did. data from @peterj_walker / Carta

Venture Capitalists have a poor understanding of valuation, relying on past experience and signals to imply value. Thus, founders gravitate towards ideas that VCs are more likely understand, to reduce fundraising friction. Outlined in this paper by Ellen Xiyue Li (more below):

Lots of hot takes (both good & bad) from Carta’s VC data out last week. What’s exciting to me is 10+ yrs ago, only VC data we had was NVCA MoneyTree & Cambridge Assoc. Now there’s Carta, Pitchbook, and various LPs sharing meaningful data sets too. carta.com/blog/vc-fund-p…

Fund I - I need to deploy capital quickly and prove I can pick Fund II - Shit. I picked OK but need to own more of those companies Fund IIII - Shoot. I don’t have reserves to follow-on in my best companies. Fund IV - Crap. I wish I recycled more in funds I-III to put more

Founder Mode: paulgraham.com/foundermode.ht…

Pre-seed is back. Seeing many more companies raise a $1M - $2M pre-seed followed by a $4M - $5M seed. More traction is needed to raise an A - and this is finally trickling through the pre-seed / seed world.

Mixtures of engineered bacteria were able to: - Identify if a number is prime - Check if a letter in a string is a vowel - Determine the max number of pieces of a pie obtained from n straight cuts. Answers are printed by expressing fluorescent proteins in different patterns.

Vinod Khosla: “70% of investors add negative value to a company” When junior team members at Khosla Ventures ask Vinod if they can serve on portfolio company boards, Vinod responds: “You haven’t earned the right to advise an entrepreneur. Just because you got an MBA and joined

Been building toward this moment with Finta for a long time now and honestly could not be more excited! “AI that helps us accomplish much more than we ever could without AI; eventually we can each have a personal AI team, full of virtual experts in different areas....

My prediction: in 50 years we’ll look at the attention economy and all the products it spewed the way we look at the tobacco industry today.

Why do startups all use the post-money SAFE? 1. Clarity - founders and investors have a much better idea of how much of the company has been sold 2. Defaults - whatever is on the YC website is "market". There's a speed advantage to using the docs that everyone else uses

Revenue multiples will be looked back on as the weak-link in venture capital practices across ZIRP (and for some time after). Not only are they crude and procyclical, they favour companies with poor financial health — and occasionally outright fraud. Cook your books to add an

The most bullish AI capability I'm looking for is not whether it's able to solve PhD grade problems. It's whether you'd hire it as a junior intern. Not "solve this theorem" but "get your slack set up, read these onboarding docs, do this task and let's check in next week".

VC backed companies will raise more this year than last - so why doesn't it feel better? TLDR: early-stage remains tough and the vibe around venture is dictated more by number of rounds than it is by total dollars. The massive jump in late-stage does little for seed/Series A

Did my chatGPT advanced voice mode just reply to its own question in the background, with a different voice that said “sure” ? Anyone else experience this?

Was chatting with a multi family office about liquidity in venture + the cold hard truth about our VC asset class VC is at the bottom of the allocation priority list for large LPs Emerging VC are at the bottom of the bottom, often accounting for less than 1% of the portfolio

Good day to remember just how big that green tree is