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This piece from Semil is from 2015, after first meeting and tracking Dylan in 2012. A great reminder that: - patience and persistence in venture are virtues - success takes years and years and years - Semil is a monster semilshah.com/2015/12/06/the…

It's not the main story, but should be noted - Mamoon Hamid obviously a top sharpshooter investor, won Slack & Figma early, right at the inflection point. To have lightning strike twice - wow! And maybe more coming w/ Rippling. Tip of the hat.

Thoughtful post by Semil on what the Figma-Adobe deal getting called off might mean for scaling startups at large. “The message here is loud and clear: Most of us have to go it alone. Plan accordingly.” I’m not privy to the numbers but my gut sense is that Figma will be fine,

Semil Good post. Bummed for you & the Figma team. But as windows close, others open. Going it alone may mean the road is longer & rougher, but the will must be greater than the skill. Even in a trough of disillusionment, conviction will power you out. echovc.com/blog/something… Drive.

AI Markets Crystalize For subset of AI markets, it is suddenly clear who the finalists or winners will be: * LLMs * Code * Legal * Medical Scribing * Customer Service * Search & IR New cos (or incumbents) may still show out of nowhere, but at least v1 of game has crystalized

My word, 9 years ago today. 20VC wouldn’t be what it is without people like Semil Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 coming on and supporting in this way. 👇

Today I randomly listened to the entire “Jump To It” album by Aretha Franklin (1982). Good heavens, she really put herself out there. Respect.

“The small, disciplined seed round that launched 1000’s of co’s has been replaced by bigger rounds, higher valuations, compressed timelines, & loftier expansion expectations.” Tomasz Tunguz tomtunguz.com/death-of-small…

Everyone's talking about AI agents as the next architectural shift. They are not a mystical, secret thing: they are just complex, long running, dynamic workflows. And engineers building them will run into familiar problems to anyone building distributed systems.

Hi friends! 10 years ago, I met a handful of people who were trying to build a design tool in the browser. I wasn’t sure if this was even possible — it seemed crazy at the time! — but the early demos looked promising, so I joined. 1/n

How will the Figma IPO impact valuation for high-growth, late-stage SaaS cos in the private markets? Asking for a friend. It's the first high-growth "comp" in the public markets in a long time.

Figma just justified modern day VC fund sizes

Always surprised how much of the startup tech ecosystem has no idea about lockup periods.

Wild turn of events.

Lots of pings this week on Figma, many asking me to write about it. But didn't feel right, so came up w/ a different idea. I asked my GPT to scan my blog for Figma mentions & write a post about Haystack's Figma ride to IPO in the style of Hunter S. Thompson - enjoy!

This is the real VC story

LAX and JFK are in an epic Wrestlemania-like battle to see which airport can conjure up the worst perimeter traffic, on-site congestion, backward rideshare pickups, and more. It’s like Hulk Hogan vs Andre the Giant circa 1987. (Double RIP).

Music Request 1/ please send me your favorite “yacht rock” playlists but more obscure the better. Vibe is a mash up between “Love Boat” TV series, classic 80s, and maybe Michael McDonald etc

Music Request 2/ Need to get educated on current London music scene, house, EDM, new bands. Ofc I love oldies like Radiohead, Oasis, Catherine Wheel, etc so anything that l’s current & evokes that tradition.

Not remotely surprsingly that Figma has a top 15 Grindscore amongst all venture backed companies with >100 Glassdoor reviews. Grindscore = % of employees "Positive Business Outlook" / "Work Life Balance." Low WLB + employees who believe in the company = success.