Harry Stebbings

If you do not listen to this weekly show, you are deliberately choosing to not make yourself smarter. The world of tech has never moved faster. You need to stay up to date with the most thoughtful analysis. That is where @rodriscoll and @jasonlk come in! 😉 On the agenda this week: - NVIDIA Bonanza: Buys Poolside & Invests in Mercor and Perplexity - Anthropic's $30TRN Revenue Assumption & OpenAI Confirms IPO - Why Customer Service, Defence and Robotics are Overinflated My notes below 1. We Are So Much More Addicted to Tokens Than We Think As employees adopt 10 to 20 sub-agents running around the clock, businesses are facing unexpected $20,000 per-employee token bills. This is not a temporary trend. Token consumption is becoming an irreversible dependency, with top talent increasingly viewing continuous access to AI compute as essential to doing their jobs. 2. Why Customer Support Is Dead as a Category Standalone customer support software is collapsing as agentic interfaces merge siloed tools into unified workflows. Legacy CS and CX platforms risk becoming cheap commodities as support capabilities are absorbed into cross-functional sales, marketing, and operational agents. 3. Why AI Services Companies Are a Bullshit Category Funding traditional law or accounting firms rebranded as AI services companies relies on convoluted structures that look great on spreadsheets but break down in execution. Premium tech multiples cannot be created simply by wrapping overworked elite graduates in AI-powered agency business models. 4. $9 Billion Doesn’t Clear the Bar for Seed Investing in 2026 High seed valuations combined with massive dilution mean even multi-billion-dollar exits may no longer generate fund-returning outcomes. If effective entry pricing reaches $600 million after dilution, a $9 billion exit produces only a 15x return, far below the 50x outcomes that drive venture power laws. 5. If Danger Can Be Described as the Absence of Choice, They Were Now in Danger As Anthropic gains enterprise share and improves profitability, OpenAI risks losing control over its public-market timeline. Massive capital requirements and intensifying competition across every model tier could leave it with fewer strategic options, forcing it to accept whatever valuation public markets are willing to offer. 6. It’s All About Code. That’s the Only Sentence That Matters Coding is the highest-ROI, fastest-adapting, and most critical workload in AI. While consumer chat products struggle with low willingness to pay and heavy compute subsidies, developer workflows command massive enterprise budgets and offer a clearer path to durable software value creation. 7. Silicon Valley Forgets Every Three Years That the Average American Is Not Trying to Be Efficient Tech founders routinely overestimate demand for personal productivity apps by assuming everyone shares Silicon Valley’s obsession with optimization. Most consumers do not wake up wanting to grind down their inboxes or maximize output, making personal productivity a notoriously narrow and difficult category to scale.

If you do not listen to this weekly show, you are deliberately choosing to not make yourself smarter. The world of tech has never moved faster. You need to stay up to date with the most thoughtful analysis. That is where @rodriscoll and @jasonlk come in! 😉 On the agenda this week: - NVIDIA Bonanza: Buys Poolside & Invests in Mercor and Perplexity - Anthropic's $30TRN Revenue Assumption & OpenAI Confirms IPO - Why Customer Service, Defence and Robotics are Overinflated My notes below 1. We Are So Much More Addicted to Tokens Than We Think As employees adopt 10 to 20 sub-agents running around the clock, businesses are facing unexpected $20,000 per-employee token bills. This is not a temporary trend. Token consumption is becoming an irreversible dependency, with top talent increasingly viewing continuous access to AI compute as essential to doing their jobs. 2. Why Customer Support Is Dead as a Category Standalone customer support software is collapsing as agentic interfaces merge siloed tools into unified workflows. Legacy CS and CX platforms risk becoming cheap commodities as support capabilities are absorbed into cross-functional sales, marketing, and operational agents. 3. Why AI Services Companies Are a Bullshit Category Funding traditional law or accounting firms rebranded as AI services companies relies on convoluted structures that look great on spreadsheets but break down in execution. Premium tech multiples cannot be created simply by wrapping overworked elite graduates in AI-powered agency business models. 4. $9 Billion Doesn’t Clear the Bar for Seed Investing in 2026 High seed valuations combined with massive dilution mean even multi-billion-dollar exits may no longer generate fund-returning outcomes. If effective entry pricing reaches $600 million after dilution, a $9 billion exit produces only a 15x return, far below the 50x outcomes that drive venture power laws. 5. If Danger Can Be Described as the Absence of Choice, They Were Now in Danger As Anthropic gains enterprise share and improves profitability, OpenAI risks losing control over its public-market timeline. Massive capital requirements and intensifying competition across every model tier could leave it with fewer strategic options, forcing it to accept whatever valuation public markets are willing to offer. 6. It’s All About Code. That’s the Only Sentence That Matters Coding is the highest-ROI, fastest-adapting, and most critical workload in AI. While consumer chat products struggle with low willingness to pay and heavy compute subsidies, developer workflows command massive enterprise budgets and offer a clearer path to durable software value creation. 7. Silicon Valley Forgets Every Three Years That the Average American Is Not Trying to Be Efficient Tech founders routinely overestimate demand for personal productivity apps by assuming everyone shares Silicon Valley’s obsession with optimization. Most consumers do not wake up wanting to grind down their inboxes or maximize output, making personal productivity a notoriously narrow and difficult category to scale.

If you do not listen to this weekly show, you are deliberately choosing to not make yourself smarter. The world of tech has never moved faster. You need to stay up to date with the most thoughtful analysis. That is where @rodriscoll and @jasonlk come in! 😉 On the agenda this week: - NVIDIA Bonanza: Buys Poolside & Invests in Mercor and Perplexity - Anthropic's $30TRN Revenue Assumption & OpenAI Confirms IPO - Why Customer Service, Defence and Robotics are Overinflated My notes below 1. We Are So Much More Addicted to Tokens Than We Think As employees adopt 10 to 20 sub-agents running around the clock, businesses are facing unexpected $20,000 per-employee token bills. This is not a temporary trend. Token consumption is becoming an irreversible dependency, with top talent increasingly viewing continuous access to AI compute as essential to doing their jobs. 2. Why Customer Support Is Dead as a Category Standalone customer support software is collapsing as agentic interfaces merge siloed tools into unified workflows. Legacy CS and CX platforms risk becoming cheap commodities as support capabilities are absorbed into cross-functional sales, marketing, and operational agents. 3. Why AI Services Companies Are a Bullshit Category Funding traditional law or accounting firms rebranded as AI services companies relies on convoluted structures that look great on spreadsheets but break down in execution. Premium tech multiples cannot be created simply by wrapping overworked elite graduates in AI-powered agency business models. 4. $9 Billion Doesn’t Clear the Bar for Seed Investing in 2026 High seed valuations combined with massive dilution mean even multi-billion-dollar exits may no longer generate fund-returning outcomes. If effective entry pricing reaches $600 million after dilution, a $9 billion exit produces only a 15x return, far below the 50x outcomes that drive venture power laws. 5. If Danger Can Be Described as the Absence of Choice, They Were Now in Danger As Anthropic gains enterprise share and improves profitability, OpenAI risks losing control over its public-market timeline. Massive capital requirements and intensifying competition across every model tier could leave it with fewer strategic options, forcing it to accept whatever valuation public markets are willing to offer. 6. It’s All About Code. That’s the Only Sentence That Matters Coding is the highest-ROI, fastest-adapting, and most critical workload in AI. While consumer chat products struggle with low willingness to pay and heavy compute subsidies, developer workflows command massive enterprise budgets and offer a clearer path to durable software value creation. 7. Silicon Valley Forgets Every Three Years That the Average American Is Not Trying to Be Efficient Tech founders routinely overestimate demand for personal productivity apps by assuming everyone shares Silicon Valley’s obsession with optimization. Most consumers do not wake up wanting to grind down their inboxes or maximize output, making personal productivity a notoriously narrow and difficult category to scale.

Nvidia acquires Hugging Face for ~$12.9bn. But who gets the 💰? My usual breakdown below 👇 *Investors are sharing ~$7.3bn of profits on <$400m invested. A cool ~20x blended.* *1) The single biggest winner here? Lux Capital.* 👑 Lux is taking the crown for the most $ returned in this transaction. The two rounds they led (Series A & Series C) generated ~$2.6bn combined. They also participated in the Series B. Congrats to @wolfejosh and team. The $15.0m Series A alone will return ~132.5x the capital invested, or ~$2.0bn. The most lucrative round in absolute $ returned. *2) Backing an exceptional team paid off with a >1,000x return for Betaworks and the angels* 📈 The story few people know: Hugging Face started life as a chatbot for lonely teenagers... You sent it a selfie and a sad emoji, it told you it understood. Quite far from where it landed! That is why backing an exceptional team in @ClementDelangue, @Thom_Wolf and @julien_c is always the right thing to do. It paid over 1,000x for Betaworks, Kevin Durant and Thibaud Elziere. *3) Founders and team are crushing it: not taking too much dilution along the way paid off* 👏 I estimate they will share ~$5bn in proceeds, assuming no secondary was taken along the way. A life changing outcome for them and many employees. Taking a 15% attributed option pool at exit, this would mean ~$2bn for the team and >$3bn to share for the three co-founders. Legendary! *4) Salesforce Ventures is cementing its reputation as one of the very best corporate VCs.* 🥇 Salesforce is adding Hugging Face to its long list of successful exits: Snowflake, Zoom, DocuSign, nCino, Auth0... Very few investors can claim as many successes, let alone corporates. The $235m round they led returned $675m in just three short years. Meanwhile, Salesforce's own stock has been flat for the period. Capital well invested! *5) This is a little bit of a heartbreak: but I wanted to congratulate @joinstationf here:* Hugging Face walked into StationF as a 4-person team on day one, June 2017. Back when it was a chatbot for teenagers. They went through multiple corporate programs (Microsoft, Ubisoft, then Naver). Unfortunately they were not investing or taking equity at the time - but they contributed to making it possible. And so for that: hats off. And of course, congratulations to all others involved: Addition, Sequoia, Coatue and many others. No one will be left out!

Revealed: Some of the City's biggest asset managers, including M&amp;G Investments and Schroders, are vying to manage a new £1bn scale-up fund targeting British science and tech champions that PM Andy Burham claims will "deliver growth in every postcode". news.sky.com/story/british-…

Warning: this is a slightly soppy post! I first met Julien Bek 8 years ago. It was my first week at Atomico and his first week at Accel. We instantly became friends. We both have parents with chronic illnesses and I think that bonded us early on. I saw what a truly good human he is. That was very clear. Over the next 8 years, he has become one of the best investors in Europe. He is a Partner at Sequoia. He has led early rounds in bangers like Rillet and Tacto. Despite all the success, he is one of the kindest people I know. He is an incredible son, and it makes me so proud and happy to see him become a Dad. This was one of the most special shows I have done, uncovering the magic behind what makes Sequoia one of the best firms in the world. Huge thanks to @DeanMeyerrr, @gradypb, @Konstantine, @shaunmmaguire, @dougleone, @nataliemiyake, @Bryce_Keane, @LucianaLix, @_georgerobson for helping to make this such a special one. My notes below with @JulienBek. 1. What Everyone Thinks They Know About Sequoia but Actually Gets Wrong Outsiders assume Sequoia sits back and waits for the hottest deals to come to them. In reality, every partner operates as a relentless hunter. Each person is expected to perform individually while working as a team to win the most competitive deals. 2. How Sequoia Came to Be the First Ambassador in Citadel Sequoia won Citadel Securities’ first outside capital round because partner Constantine built a relationship with Ken Griffin that began when Constantine was a student. Years of persistence, mentorship, and trust ultimately beat transactional dealmaking. 3. The Biggest Takeaway From Every Sequoia Offsite Decades of legendary returns show that financial engineering and ownership tweaks do not drive top-tier performance. The common thread behind Sequoia’s greatest investments is much simpler: a sponsoring partner with extraordinary conviction. 4. Why Sequoia Is Experimenting With Different Types of Decision-Making Live IC meetings are great for fast debate, but Sequoia is incorporating asynchronous written memos to encourage slower, more deliberate thinking. Combining documented reflection with live discussion helps expose blind spots and improve investment decisions. 5. Why Sequoia Is Not Less Ownership-Centric Than Ever Targeting high ownership reflects the scarcity of a partner’s time. An investor can realistically serve on only around 20 boards over a career. Deep, hands-on company building becomes impossible when attention is diluted across hundreds of tiny 2% positions. 6. Lesson From Don Valentine on Founder Selection Don Valentine’s matrix of “founders you like” versus “founders who make money” shows that likability does not determine returns. Even arrogance can be the byproduct of an exceptional strength. Investors should focus on whether that defining spike creates a genuine competitive advantage. 7. The Biggest Lesson From Doug Leone To uncover the truth in reference checks, use Doug Leone’s technique: ask for a founder’s best reference, then immediately ask, “Who would be your worst reference, and why?” Watching how their composure shifts can reveal far more about self-awareness and operating style. (links in comments)

Warning: this is a slightly soppy post! I first met Julien Bek 8 years ago. It was my first week at Atomico and his first week at Accel. We instantly became friends. We both have parents with chronic illnesses and I think that bonded us early on. I saw what a truly good human he is. That was very clear. Over the next 8 years, he has become one of the best investors in Europe. He is a Partner at Sequoia. He has led early rounds in bangers like Rillet and Tacto. Despite all the success, he is one of the kindest people I know. He is an incredible son, and it makes me so proud and happy to see him become a Dad. This was one of the most special shows I have done, uncovering the magic behind what makes Sequoia one of the best firms in the world. Huge thanks to @DeanMeyerrr, @gradypb, @Konstantine, @shaunmmaguire, @dougleone, @nataliemiyake, @Bryce_Keane, @LucianaLix, @_georgerobson for helping to make this such a special one. My notes below with @JulienBek. 1. What Everyone Thinks They Know About Sequoia but Actually Gets Wrong Outsiders assume Sequoia sits back and waits for the hottest deals to come to them. In reality, every partner operates as a relentless hunter. Each person is expected to perform individually while working as a team to win the most competitive deals. 2. How Sequoia Came to Be the First Ambassador in Citadel Sequoia won Citadel Securities’ first outside capital round because partner Constantine built a relationship with Ken Griffin that began when Constantine was a student. Years of persistence, mentorship, and trust ultimately beat transactional dealmaking. 3. The Biggest Takeaway From Every Sequoia Offsite Decades of legendary returns show that financial engineering and ownership tweaks do not drive top-tier performance. The common thread behind Sequoia’s greatest investments is much simpler: a sponsoring partner with extraordinary conviction. 4. Why Sequoia Is Experimenting With Different Types of Decision-Making Live IC meetings are great for fast debate, but Sequoia is incorporating asynchronous written memos to encourage slower, more deliberate thinking. Combining documented reflection with live discussion helps expose blind spots and improve investment decisions. 5. Why Sequoia Is Not Less Ownership-Centric Than Ever Targeting high ownership reflects the scarcity of a partner’s time. An investor can realistically serve on only around 20 boards over a career. Deep, hands-on company building becomes impossible when attention is diluted across hundreds of tiny 2% positions. 6. Lesson From Don Valentine on Founder Selection Don Valentine’s matrix of “founders you like” versus “founders who make money” shows that likability does not determine returns. Even arrogance can be the byproduct of an exceptional strength. Investors should focus on whether that defining spike creates a genuine competitive advantage. 7. The Biggest Lesson From Doug Leone To uncover the truth in reference checks, use Doug Leone’s technique: ask for a founder’s best reference, then immediately ask, “Who would be your worst reference, and why?” Watching how their composure shifts can reveal far more about self-awareness and operating style. (links in comments)

Warning: this is a slightly soppy post! I first met Julien Bek 8 years ago. It was my first week at Atomico and his first week at Accel. We instantly became friends. We both have parents with chronic illnesses and I think that bonded us early on. I saw what a truly good human he is. That was very clear. Over the next 8 years, he has become one of the best investors in Europe. He is a Partner at Sequoia. He has led early rounds in bangers like Rillet and Tacto. Despite all the success, he is one of the kindest people I know. He is an incredible son, and it makes me so proud and happy to see him become a Dad. This was one of the most special shows I have done, uncovering the magic behind what makes Sequoia one of the best firms in the world. Huge thanks to @DeanMeyerrr, @gradypb, @Konstantine, @shaunmmaguire, @dougleone, @nataliemiyake, @Bryce_Keane, @LucianaLix, @_georgerobson for helping to make this such a special one. My notes below with @JulienBek. 1. What Everyone Thinks They Know About Sequoia but Actually Gets Wrong Outsiders assume Sequoia sits back and waits for the hottest deals to come to them. In reality, every partner operates as a relentless hunter. Each person is expected to perform individually while working as a team to win the most competitive deals. 2. How Sequoia Came to Be the First Ambassador in Citadel Sequoia won Citadel Securities’ first outside capital round because partner Constantine built a relationship with Ken Griffin that began when Constantine was a student. Years of persistence, mentorship, and trust ultimately beat transactional dealmaking. 3. The Biggest Takeaway From Every Sequoia Offsite Decades of legendary returns show that financial engineering and ownership tweaks do not drive top-tier performance. The common thread behind Sequoia’s greatest investments is much simpler: a sponsoring partner with extraordinary conviction. 4. Why Sequoia Is Experimenting With Different Types of Decision-Making Live IC meetings are great for fast debate, but Sequoia is incorporating asynchronous written memos to encourage slower, more deliberate thinking. Combining documented reflection with live discussion helps expose blind spots and improve investment decisions. 5. Why Sequoia Is Not Less Ownership-Centric Than Ever Targeting high ownership reflects the scarcity of a partner’s time. An investor can realistically serve on only around 20 boards over a career. Deep, hands-on company building becomes impossible when attention is diluted across hundreds of tiny 2% positions. 6. Lesson From Don Valentine on Founder Selection Don Valentine’s matrix of “founders you like” versus “founders who make money” shows that likability does not determine returns. Even arrogance can be the byproduct of an exceptional strength. Investors should focus on whether that defining spike creates a genuine competitive advantage. 7. The Biggest Lesson From Doug Leone To uncover the truth in reference checks, use Doug Leone’s technique: ask for a founder’s best reference, then immediately ask, “Who would be your worst reference, and why?” Watching how their composure shifts can reveal far more about self-awareness and operating style. (links in comments)

Warning: this is a slightly soppy post! I first met Julien Bek 8 years ago. It was my first week at Atomico and his first week at Accel. We instantly became friends. We both have parents with chronic illnesses and I think that bonded us early on. I saw what a truly good human he is. That was very clear. Over the next 8 years, he has become one of the best investors in Europe. He is a Partner at Sequoia. He has led early rounds in bangers like Rillet and Tacto. Despite all the success, he is one of the kindest people I know. He is an incredible son, and it makes me so proud and happy to see him become a Dad. This was one of the most special shows I have done, uncovering the magic behind what makes Sequoia one of the best firms in the world. Huge thanks to @DeanMeyerrr, @gradypb, @Konstantine, @shaunmmaguire, @dougleone, @nataliemiyake, @Bryce_Keane, @LucianaLix, @_georgerobson for helping to make this such a special one. My notes below with @JulienBek. 1. What Everyone Thinks They Know About Sequoia but Actually Gets Wrong Outsiders assume Sequoia sits back and waits for the hottest deals to come to them. In reality, every partner operates as a relentless hunter. Each person is expected to perform individually while working as a team to win the most competitive deals. 2. How Sequoia Came to Be the First Ambassador in Citadel Sequoia won Citadel Securities’ first outside capital round because partner Constantine built a relationship with Ken Griffin that began when Constantine was a student. Years of persistence, mentorship, and trust ultimately beat transactional dealmaking. 3. The Biggest Takeaway From Every Sequoia Offsite Decades of legendary returns show that financial engineering and ownership tweaks do not drive top-tier performance. The common thread behind Sequoia’s greatest investments is much simpler: a sponsoring partner with extraordinary conviction. 4. Why Sequoia Is Experimenting With Different Types of Decision-Making Live IC meetings are great for fast debate, but Sequoia is incorporating asynchronous written memos to encourage slower, more deliberate thinking. Combining documented reflection with live discussion helps expose blind spots and improve investment decisions. 5. Why Sequoia Is Not Less Ownership-Centric Than Ever Targeting high ownership reflects the scarcity of a partner’s time. An investor can realistically serve on only around 20 boards over a career. Deep, hands-on company building becomes impossible when attention is diluted across hundreds of tiny 2% positions. 6. Lesson From Don Valentine on Founder Selection Don Valentine’s matrix of “founders you like” versus “founders who make money” shows that likability does not determine returns. Even arrogance can be the byproduct of an exceptional strength. Investors should focus on whether that defining spike creates a genuine competitive advantage. 7. The Biggest Lesson From Doug Leone To uncover the truth in reference checks, use Doug Leone’s technique: ask for a founder’s best reference, then immediately ask, “Who would be your worst reference, and why?” Watching how their composure shifts can reveal far more about self-awareness and operating style. (links in comments)

Warning: this is a slightly soppy post! I first met Julien Bek 8 years ago. It was my first week at Atomico and his first week at Accel. We instantly became friends. We both have parents with chronic illnesses and I think that bonded us early on. I saw what a truly good human he is. That was very clear. Over the next 8 years, he has become one of the best investors in Europe. He is a Partner at Sequoia. He has led early rounds in bangers like Rillet and Tacto. Despite all the success, he is one of the kindest people I know. He is an incredible son, and it makes me so proud and happy to see him become a Dad. This was one of the most special shows I have done, uncovering the magic behind what makes Sequoia one of the best firms in the world. Huge thanks to @DeanMeyerrr, @gradypb, @Konstantine, @shaunmmaguire, @dougleone, @nataliemiyake, @Bryce_Keane, @LucianaLix, @_georgerobson for helping to make this such a special one. My notes below with @JulienBek. 1. What Everyone Thinks They Know About Sequoia but Actually Gets Wrong Outsiders assume Sequoia sits back and waits for the hottest deals to come to them. In reality, every partner operates as a relentless hunter. Each person is expected to perform individually while working as a team to win the most competitive deals. 2. How Sequoia Came to Be the First Ambassador in Citadel Sequoia won Citadel Securities’ first outside capital round because partner Constantine built a relationship with Ken Griffin that began when Constantine was a student. Years of persistence, mentorship, and trust ultimately beat transactional dealmaking. 3. The Biggest Takeaway From Every Sequoia Offsite Decades of legendary returns show that financial engineering and ownership tweaks do not drive top-tier performance. The common thread behind Sequoia’s greatest investments is much simpler: a sponsoring partner with extraordinary conviction. 4. Why Sequoia Is Experimenting With Different Types of Decision-Making Live IC meetings are great for fast debate, but Sequoia is incorporating asynchronous written memos to encourage slower, more deliberate thinking. Combining documented reflection with live discussion helps expose blind spots and improve investment decisions. 5. Why Sequoia Is Not Less Ownership-Centric Than Ever Targeting high ownership reflects the scarcity of a partner’s time. An investor can realistically serve on only around 20 boards over a career. Deep, hands-on company building becomes impossible when attention is diluted across hundreds of tiny 2% positions. 6. Lesson From Don Valentine on Founder Selection Don Valentine’s matrix of “founders you like” versus “founders who make money” shows that likability does not determine returns. Even arrogance can be the byproduct of an exceptional strength. Investors should focus on whether that defining spike creates a genuine competitive advantage. 7. The Biggest Lesson From Doug Leone To uncover the truth in reference checks, use Doug Leone’s technique: ask for a founder’s best reference, then immediately ask, “Who would be your worst reference, and why?” Watching how their composure shifts can reveal far more about self-awareness and operating style. (links in comments)

Warning: this is a slightly soppy post! I first met Julien Bek 8 years ago. It was my first week at Atomico and his first week at Accel. We instantly became friends. We both have parents with chronic illnesses and I think that bonded us early on. I saw what a truly good human he is. That was very clear. Over the next 8 years, he has become one of the best investors in Europe. He is a Partner at Sequoia. He has led early rounds in bangers like Rillet and Tacto. Despite all the success, he is one of the kindest people I know. He is an incredible son, and it makes me so proud and happy to see him become a Dad. This was one of the most special shows I have done, uncovering the magic behind what makes Sequoia one of the best firms in the world. Huge thanks to @DeanMeyerrr, @gradypb, @Konstantine, @shaunmmaguire, @dougleone, @nataliemiyake, @Bryce_Keane, @LucianaLix, @_georgerobson for helping to make this such a special one. My notes below with @JulienBek. 1. What Everyone Thinks They Know About Sequoia but Actually Gets Wrong Outsiders assume Sequoia sits back and waits for the hottest deals to come to them. In reality, every partner operates as a relentless hunter. Each person is expected to perform individually while working as a team to win the most competitive deals. 2. How Sequoia Came to Be the First Ambassador in Citadel Sequoia won Citadel Securities’ first outside capital round because partner Constantine built a relationship with Ken Griffin that began when Constantine was a student. Years of persistence, mentorship, and trust ultimately beat transactional dealmaking. 3. The Biggest Takeaway From Every Sequoia Offsite Decades of legendary returns show that financial engineering and ownership tweaks do not drive top-tier performance. The common thread behind Sequoia’s greatest investments is much simpler: a sponsoring partner with extraordinary conviction. 4. Why Sequoia Is Experimenting With Different Types of Decision-Making Live IC meetings are great for fast debate, but Sequoia is incorporating asynchronous written memos to encourage slower, more deliberate thinking. Combining documented reflection with live discussion helps expose blind spots and improve investment decisions. 5. Why Sequoia Is Not Less Ownership-Centric Than Ever Targeting high ownership reflects the scarcity of a partner’s time. An investor can realistically serve on only around 20 boards over a career. Deep, hands-on company building becomes impossible when attention is diluted across hundreds of tiny 2% positions. 6. Lesson From Don Valentine on Founder Selection Don Valentine’s matrix of “founders you like” versus “founders who make money” shows that likability does not determine returns. Even arrogance can be the byproduct of an exceptional strength. Investors should focus on whether that defining spike creates a genuine competitive advantage. 7. The Biggest Lesson From Doug Leone To uncover the truth in reference checks, use Doug Leone’s technique: ask for a founder’s best reference, then immediately ask, “Who would be your worst reference, and why?” Watching how their composure shifts can reveal far more about self-awareness and operating style. (links in comments)

Warning: this is a slightly soppy post! I first met Julien Bek 8 years ago. It was my first week at Atomico and his first week at Accel. We instantly became friends. We both have parents with chronic illnesses and I think that bonded us early on. I saw what a truly good human he is. That was very clear. Over the next 8 years, he has become one of the best investors in Europe. He is a Partner at Sequoia. He has led early rounds in bangers like Rillet and Tacto. Despite all the success, he is one of the kindest people I know. He is an incredible son, and it makes me so proud and happy to see him become a Dad. This was one of the most special shows I have done, uncovering the magic behind what makes Sequoia one of the best firms in the world. Huge thanks to @DeanMeyerrr, @gradypb, @Konstantine, @shaunmmaguire, @dougleone, @nataliemiyake, @Bryce_Keane, @LucianaLix, @_georgerobson for helping to make this such a special one. My notes below with @JulienBek. 1. What Everyone Thinks They Know About Sequoia but Actually Gets Wrong Outsiders assume Sequoia sits back and waits for the hottest deals to come to them. In reality, every partner operates as a relentless hunter. Each person is expected to perform individually while working as a team to win the most competitive deals. 2. How Sequoia Came to Be the First Ambassador in Citadel Sequoia won Citadel Securities’ first outside capital round because partner Constantine built a relationship with Ken Griffin that began when Constantine was a student. Years of persistence, mentorship, and trust ultimately beat transactional dealmaking. 3. The Biggest Takeaway From Every Sequoia Offsite Decades of legendary returns show that financial engineering and ownership tweaks do not drive top-tier performance. The common thread behind Sequoia’s greatest investments is much simpler: a sponsoring partner with extraordinary conviction. 4. Why Sequoia Is Experimenting With Different Types of Decision-Making Live IC meetings are great for fast debate, but Sequoia is incorporating asynchronous written memos to encourage slower, more deliberate thinking. Combining documented reflection with live discussion helps expose blind spots and improve investment decisions. 5. Why Sequoia Is Not Less Ownership-Centric Than Ever Targeting high ownership reflects the scarcity of a partner’s time. An investor can realistically serve on only around 20 boards over a career. Deep, hands-on company building becomes impossible when attention is diluted across hundreds of tiny 2% positions. 6. Lesson From Don Valentine on Founder Selection Don Valentine’s matrix of “founders you like” versus “founders who make money” shows that likability does not determine returns. Even arrogance can be the byproduct of an exceptional strength. Investors should focus on whether that defining spike creates a genuine competitive advantage. 7. The Biggest Lesson From Doug Leone To uncover the truth in reference checks, use Doug Leone’s technique: ask for a founder’s best reference, then immediately ask, “Who would be your worst reference, and why?” Watching how their composure shifts can reveal far more about self-awareness and operating style. (links in comments)

Warning: this is a slightly soppy post! I first met Julien Bek 8 years ago. It was my first week at Atomico and his first week at Accel. We instantly became friends. We both have parents with chronic illnesses and I think that bonded us early on. I saw what a truly good human he is. That was very clear. Over the next 8 years, he has become one of the best investors in Europe. He is a Partner at Sequoia. He has led early rounds in bangers like Rillet and Tacto. Despite all the success, he is one of the kindest people I know. He is an incredible son, and it makes me so proud and happy to see him become a Dad. This was one of the most special shows I have done, uncovering the magic behind what makes Sequoia one of the best firms in the world. Huge thanks to @DeanMeyerrr, @gradypb, @Konstantine, @shaunmmaguire, @dougleone, @nataliemiyake, @Bryce_Keane, @LucianaLix, @_georgerobson for helping to make this such a special one. My notes below with @JulienBek. 1. What Everyone Thinks They Know About Sequoia but Actually Gets Wrong Outsiders assume Sequoia sits back and waits for the hottest deals to come to them. In reality, every partner operates as a relentless hunter. Each person is expected to perform individually while working as a team to win the most competitive deals. 2. How Sequoia Came to Be the First Ambassador in Citadel Sequoia won Citadel Securities’ first outside capital round because partner Constantine built a relationship with Ken Griffin that began when Constantine was a student. Years of persistence, mentorship, and trust ultimately beat transactional dealmaking. 3. The Biggest Takeaway From Every Sequoia Offsite Decades of legendary returns show that financial engineering and ownership tweaks do not drive top-tier performance. The common thread behind Sequoia’s greatest investments is much simpler: a sponsoring partner with extraordinary conviction. 4. Why Sequoia Is Experimenting With Different Types of Decision-Making Live IC meetings are great for fast debate, but Sequoia is incorporating asynchronous written memos to encourage slower, more deliberate thinking. Combining documented reflection with live discussion helps expose blind spots and improve investment decisions. 5. Why Sequoia Is Not Less Ownership-Centric Than Ever Targeting high ownership reflects the scarcity of a partner’s time. An investor can realistically serve on only around 20 boards over a career. Deep, hands-on company building becomes impossible when attention is diluted across hundreds of tiny 2% positions. 6. Lesson From Don Valentine on Founder Selection Don Valentine’s matrix of “founders you like” versus “founders who make money” shows that likability does not determine returns. Even arrogance can be the byproduct of an exceptional strength. Investors should focus on whether that defining spike creates a genuine competitive advantage. 7. The Biggest Lesson From Doug Leone To uncover the truth in reference checks, use Doug Leone’s technique: ask for a founder’s best reference, then immediately ask, “Who would be your worst reference, and why?” Watching how their composure shifts can reveal far more about self-awareness and operating style. (links in comments)

Warning: this is a slightly soppy post! I first met Julien Bek 8 years ago. It was my first week at Atomico and his first week at Accel. We instantly became friends. We both have parents with chronic illnesses and I think that bonded us early on. I saw what a truly good human he is. That was very clear. Over the next 8 years, he has become one of the best investors in Europe. He is a Partner at Sequoia. He has led early rounds in bangers like Rillet and Tacto. Despite all the success, he is one of the kindest people I know. He is an incredible son, and it makes me so proud and happy to see him become a Dad. This was one of the most special shows I have done, uncovering the magic behind what makes Sequoia one of the best firms in the world. Huge thanks to @DeanMeyerrr, @gradypb, @Konstantine, @shaunmmaguire, @dougleone, @nataliemiyake, @Bryce_Keane, @LucianaLix, @_georgerobson for helping to make this such a special one. My notes below with @JulienBek. 1. What Everyone Thinks They Know About Sequoia but Actually Gets Wrong Outsiders assume Sequoia sits back and waits for the hottest deals to come to them. In reality, every partner operates as a relentless hunter. Each person is expected to perform individually while working as a team to win the most competitive deals. 2. How Sequoia Came to Be the First Ambassador in Citadel Sequoia won Citadel Securities’ first outside capital round because partner Constantine built a relationship with Ken Griffin that began when Constantine was a student. Years of persistence, mentorship, and trust ultimately beat transactional dealmaking. 3. The Biggest Takeaway From Every Sequoia Offsite Decades of legendary returns show that financial engineering and ownership tweaks do not drive top-tier performance. The common thread behind Sequoia’s greatest investments is much simpler: a sponsoring partner with extraordinary conviction. 4. Why Sequoia Is Experimenting With Different Types of Decision-Making Live IC meetings are great for fast debate, but Sequoia is incorporating asynchronous written memos to encourage slower, more deliberate thinking. Combining documented reflection with live discussion helps expose blind spots and improve investment decisions. 5. Why Sequoia Is Not Less Ownership-Centric Than Ever Targeting high ownership reflects the scarcity of a partner’s time. An investor can realistically serve on only around 20 boards over a career. Deep, hands-on company building becomes impossible when attention is diluted across hundreds of tiny 2% positions. 6. Lesson From Don Valentine on Founder Selection Don Valentine’s matrix of “founders you like” versus “founders who make money” shows that likability does not determine returns. Even arrogance can be the byproduct of an exceptional strength. Investors should focus on whether that defining spike creates a genuine competitive advantage. 7. The Biggest Lesson From Doug Leone To uncover the truth in reference checks, use Doug Leone’s technique: ask for a founder’s best reference, then immediately ask, “Who would be your worst reference, and why?” Watching how their composure shifts can reveal far more about self-awareness and operating style. (links in comments)

Warning: this is a slightly soppy post! I first met Julien Bek 8 years ago. It was my first week at Atomico and his first week at Accel. We instantly became friends. We both have parents with chronic illnesses and I think that bonded us early on. I saw what a truly good human he is. That was very clear. Over the next 8 years, he has become one of the best investors in Europe. He is a Partner at Sequoia. He has led early rounds in bangers like Rillet and Tacto. Despite all the success, he is one of the kindest people I know. He is an incredible son, and it makes me so proud and happy to see him become a Dad. This was one of the most special shows I have done, uncovering the magic behind what makes Sequoia one of the best firms in the world. Huge thanks to @DeanMeyerrr, @gradypb, @Konstantine, @shaunmmaguire, @dougleone, @nataliemiyake, @Bryce_Keane, @LucianaLix, @_georgerobson for helping to make this such a special one. My notes below with @JulienBek. 1. What Everyone Thinks They Know About Sequoia but Actually Gets Wrong Outsiders assume Sequoia sits back and waits for the hottest deals to come to them. In reality, every partner operates as a relentless hunter. Each person is expected to perform individually while working as a team to win the most competitive deals. 2. How Sequoia Came to Be the First Ambassador in Citadel Sequoia won Citadel Securities’ first outside capital round because partner Constantine built a relationship with Ken Griffin that began when Constantine was a student. Years of persistence, mentorship, and trust ultimately beat transactional dealmaking. 3. The Biggest Takeaway From Every Sequoia Offsite Decades of legendary returns show that financial engineering and ownership tweaks do not drive top-tier performance. The common thread behind Sequoia’s greatest investments is much simpler: a sponsoring partner with extraordinary conviction. 4. Why Sequoia Is Experimenting With Different Types of Decision-Making Live IC meetings are great for fast debate, but Sequoia is incorporating asynchronous written memos to encourage slower, more deliberate thinking. Combining documented reflection with live discussion helps expose blind spots and improve investment decisions. 5. Why Sequoia Is Not Less Ownership-Centric Than Ever Targeting high ownership reflects the scarcity of a partner’s time. An investor can realistically serve on only around 20 boards over a career. Deep, hands-on company building becomes impossible when attention is diluted across hundreds of tiny 2% positions. 6. Lesson From Don Valentine on Founder Selection Don Valentine’s matrix of “founders you like” versus “founders who make money” shows that likability does not determine returns. Even arrogance can be the byproduct of an exceptional strength. Investors should focus on whether that defining spike creates a genuine competitive advantage. 7. The Biggest Lesson From Doug Leone To uncover the truth in reference checks, use Doug Leone’s technique: ask for a founder’s best reference, then immediately ask, “Who would be your worst reference, and why?” Watching how their composure shifts can reveal far more about self-awareness and operating style. (links in comments)

In 1852 aluminium cost twice as much as gold. Then the price fell over 99.9%. Yet it built one of the largest materials markets on earth. What it says about AI tokens: x.com/i/article/2084…

If you are not staying up to date with the most pressing news, you are doing a disservice to yourself and your company. This is the only show you have to listen to every week and what a week’s worth of news it was… AGENDA: - SpaceX Buys Cursor for $60BN - Stripe's $8BN OpenRouter Bet - Anthropic's First Profit & The Math Behind Reaching $600BN in Revenue? - Lovable and Higgsfield Raise Mega Rounds My notes below with @jasonlk and @rodriscoll: 1. I Would Rather Be Acquired by @elonmusk Than Zuck Founders often prefer selling to an iconic, highly effective operator like Elon Musk over entering Meta’s corporate structure. Despite advice to ignore brand prestige, emotional alignment and shared vision frequently play a major role in determining the ultimate M&A destination. 2. What Buyout Financiers Should Look for in Companies Today Private equity buyers should target closed systems of record with near-zero churn and highly predictable cash flows. Closed architectures protect ecosystem budgets and create a defensible moat against disruption from third-party AI agents. 3. Why OpenRouter Is a Niche Product That Could Lead to a Bad Acquisition for Stripe Multi-model routers thrive in developer environments, but high-reasoning B2B workflows often standardize on specific models to prevent drift. Stripe risks acquiring a niche tool serving narrow developer use cases rather than a platform with broad enterprise transaction potential. 4. Why Revenue Is So Weird in M&A: The Tale of Two Worlds PE buyouts require precise accounting around existing revenue, while strategic acquirers can largely ignore it. Strategic M&A prices platforms on future expansion potential, sometimes abandoning legacy revenue streams entirely to unlock a much larger market opportunity. 5. Why the OpenRouter Deal Does Make Sense Paying a premium for an elegant, deployable product can be far more efficient than building the infrastructure internally. Even if OpenRouter remains a niche tool, an acquisition could provide immediate access to massive AI inference flows and create a critical second growth engine. 6. Why Optimism Beats Pessimism in Hyper-Growth Markets Fixating on early unit economics can make investors sound smart while causing them to miss massive market waves. In booming categories like AI coding, products scaling rapidly despite margin headwinds can still become category leaders and attract strategic buyers capable of absorbing those costs. 7. Why Legacy Software Roadmaps Can’t Survive the Agentic Era Rapidly improving AI capabilities have broken the traditional quarterly software roadmap. Engineering teams embracing agentic workflows can pull years of planned development forward, leaving slower legacy teams built around incremental release cycles increasingly behind. (links in comments)

If you are not staying up to date with the most pressing news, you are doing a disservice to yourself and your company. This is the only show you have to listen to every week and what a week’s worth of news it was… AGENDA: - SpaceX Buys Cursor for $60BN - Stripe's $8BN OpenRouter Bet - Anthropic's First Profit & The Math Behind Reaching $600BN in Revenue? - Lovable and Higgsfield Raise Mega Rounds My notes below with @jasonlk and @rodriscoll: 1. I Would Rather Be Acquired by @elonmusk Than Zuck Founders often prefer selling to an iconic, highly effective operator like Elon Musk over entering Meta’s corporate structure. Despite advice to ignore brand prestige, emotional alignment and shared vision frequently play a major role in determining the ultimate M&A destination. 2. What Buyout Financiers Should Look for in Companies Today Private equity buyers should target closed systems of record with near-zero churn and highly predictable cash flows. Closed architectures protect ecosystem budgets and create a defensible moat against disruption from third-party AI agents. 3. Why OpenRouter Is a Niche Product That Could Lead to a Bad Acquisition for Stripe Multi-model routers thrive in developer environments, but high-reasoning B2B workflows often standardize on specific models to prevent drift. Stripe risks acquiring a niche tool serving narrow developer use cases rather than a platform with broad enterprise transaction potential. 4. Why Revenue Is So Weird in M&A: The Tale of Two Worlds PE buyouts require precise accounting around existing revenue, while strategic acquirers can largely ignore it. Strategic M&A prices platforms on future expansion potential, sometimes abandoning legacy revenue streams entirely to unlock a much larger market opportunity. 5. Why the OpenRouter Deal Does Make Sense Paying a premium for an elegant, deployable product can be far more efficient than building the infrastructure internally. Even if OpenRouter remains a niche tool, an acquisition could provide immediate access to massive AI inference flows and create a critical second growth engine. 6. Why Optimism Beats Pessimism in Hyper-Growth Markets Fixating on early unit economics can make investors sound smart while causing them to miss massive market waves. In booming categories like AI coding, products scaling rapidly despite margin headwinds can still become category leaders and attract strategic buyers capable of absorbing those costs. 7. Why Legacy Software Roadmaps Can’t Survive the Agentic Era Rapidly improving AI capabilities have broken the traditional quarterly software roadmap. Engineering teams embracing agentic workflows can pull years of planned development forward, leaving slower legacy teams built around incremental release cycles increasingly behind. (links in comments)

If you are not staying up to date with the most pressing news, you are doing a disservice to yourself and your company. This is the only show you have to listen to every week and what a week’s worth of news it was… AGENDA: - SpaceX Buys Cursor for $60BN - Stripe's $8BN OpenRouter Bet - Anthropic's First Profit & The Math Behind Reaching $600BN in Revenue? - Lovable and Higgsfield Raise Mega Rounds My notes below with @jasonlk and @rodriscoll: 1. I Would Rather Be Acquired by @elonmusk Than Zuck Founders often prefer selling to an iconic, highly effective operator like Elon Musk over entering Meta’s corporate structure. Despite advice to ignore brand prestige, emotional alignment and shared vision frequently play a major role in determining the ultimate M&A destination. 2. What Buyout Financiers Should Look for in Companies Today Private equity buyers should target closed systems of record with near-zero churn and highly predictable cash flows. Closed architectures protect ecosystem budgets and create a defensible moat against disruption from third-party AI agents. 3. Why OpenRouter Is a Niche Product That Could Lead to a Bad Acquisition for Stripe Multi-model routers thrive in developer environments, but high-reasoning B2B workflows often standardize on specific models to prevent drift. Stripe risks acquiring a niche tool serving narrow developer use cases rather than a platform with broad enterprise transaction potential. 4. Why Revenue Is So Weird in M&A: The Tale of Two Worlds PE buyouts require precise accounting around existing revenue, while strategic acquirers can largely ignore it. Strategic M&A prices platforms on future expansion potential, sometimes abandoning legacy revenue streams entirely to unlock a much larger market opportunity. 5. Why the OpenRouter Deal Does Make Sense Paying a premium for an elegant, deployable product can be far more efficient than building the infrastructure internally. Even if OpenRouter remains a niche tool, an acquisition could provide immediate access to massive AI inference flows and create a critical second growth engine. 6. Why Optimism Beats Pessimism in Hyper-Growth Markets Fixating on early unit economics can make investors sound smart while causing them to miss massive market waves. In booming categories like AI coding, products scaling rapidly despite margin headwinds can still become category leaders and attract strategic buyers capable of absorbing those costs. 7. Why Legacy Software Roadmaps Can’t Survive the Agentic Era Rapidly improving AI capabilities have broken the traditional quarterly software roadmap. Engineering teams embracing agentic workflows can pull years of planned development forward, leaving slower legacy teams built around incremental release cycles increasingly behind. (links in comments)

We are excited to drive the research work of Tenet with Harvey, delivering frontier quality across 24 areas of corporate law. Tenet exceeded Opus5 and Fable at many dimensions, covering 1300+ legal tasks. There are many good findings from this work. Congrats @harvey team for launching Tenet!

I have interviewed 1,000 of the best operators of the last 10 years. Ironically, one of the best I have ever interviewed isn’t actually a Founder. He is the longest serving employee at @Uber. Andrew MacDonald. He rarely does interviews and this was the most insane behind the scenes at one of the worlds largest companies: - Spending $52M per week in China - Lessons from Travis Kalanick - Why autonomy is existential - How AI helps and hurts Uber There was so much in this, I took notes and have added them below: 1. How Does Uber Decide What New Products to Do Versus Not Do? At nearly $250 billion in gross bookings, new mobility or delivery products must show a credible path to billions in transaction volume within a few years to justify organizational resources. Anything smaller risks being swallowed by the demands of the core business. 2. How Companies Need to Extract AI Efficiency Measuring AI ROI on a per-employee basis is nearly impossible because saved hours simply get absorbed by other work. Instead, leaders should capture efficiency through OpEx by capping or reducing headcount targets and requiring teams to produce more with existing resources. 3. Uber Have a SWAT Team of the Best AI Engineers Uber created a dedicated pod of 30 elite AI engineers paired directly with G&A teams and business process owners. By rebuilding workflows from the ground up, they cut weekly pricing processes from 15 hours to two and marketing QA from two weeks to two days. 4. Why We Were Right to Focus on Core Strategy and Divest the Autonomy Business at the Time When COVID erased 84% of Uber’s mobility revenue in three weeks, the company divested its ATG autonomous driving unit. Exiting a capital-intensive race where Uber trailed competitors freed the company to focus on turning its core marketplace into a cash-flowing machine. 5. Will Uber Have More or Fewer Employees in Five Years’ Time? While AI will create entirely new industries, execution-heavy enterprise functions will see significant headcount contraction. Roles centered on customer support, sales ops, content production, and reporting analytics will face substantial augmentation and partial replacement by AI agents. 6. Crazy Story Number One From Working in China At the peak of its market-share war with DiDi in China, Uber burned $52 million per week on price subsidies alone. Competing without access to WeChat made winning nearly impossible, but aggressive capital deployment gave Uber the leverage needed to negotiate a successful local exit. 7. Single Biggest Lesson From Travis Kalanick Travis Kalanick’s operational superpower was walking into a meeting, asking pointed questions, and advancing weeks of expert thinking in 15 minutes. Great leaders create leverage by constantly exercising this problem-solving muscle and teaching the principles behind their decisions. (links in comments) @andrewgordonmac

I have interviewed 1,000 of the best operators of the last 10 years. Ironically, one of the best I have ever interviewed isn’t actually a Founder. He is the longest serving employee at @Uber. Andrew MacDonald. He rarely does interviews and this was the most insane behind the scenes at one of the worlds largest companies: - Spending $52M per week in China - Lessons from Travis Kalanick - Why autonomy is existential - How AI helps and hurts Uber There was so much in this, I took notes and have added them below: 1. How Does Uber Decide What New Products to Do Versus Not Do? At nearly $250 billion in gross bookings, new mobility or delivery products must show a credible path to billions in transaction volume within a few years to justify organizational resources. Anything smaller risks being swallowed by the demands of the core business. 2. How Companies Need to Extract AI Efficiency Measuring AI ROI on a per-employee basis is nearly impossible because saved hours simply get absorbed by other work. Instead, leaders should capture efficiency through OpEx by capping or reducing headcount targets and requiring teams to produce more with existing resources. 3. Uber Have a SWAT Team of the Best AI Engineers Uber created a dedicated pod of 30 elite AI engineers paired directly with G&A teams and business process owners. By rebuilding workflows from the ground up, they cut weekly pricing processes from 15 hours to two and marketing QA from two weeks to two days. 4. Why We Were Right to Focus on Core Strategy and Divest the Autonomy Business at the Time When COVID erased 84% of Uber’s mobility revenue in three weeks, the company divested its ATG autonomous driving unit. Exiting a capital-intensive race where Uber trailed competitors freed the company to focus on turning its core marketplace into a cash-flowing machine. 5. Will Uber Have More or Fewer Employees in Five Years’ Time? While AI will create entirely new industries, execution-heavy enterprise functions will see significant headcount contraction. Roles centered on customer support, sales ops, content production, and reporting analytics will face substantial augmentation and partial replacement by AI agents. 6. Crazy Story Number One From Working in China At the peak of its market-share war with DiDi in China, Uber burned $52 million per week on price subsidies alone. Competing without access to WeChat made winning nearly impossible, but aggressive capital deployment gave Uber the leverage needed to negotiate a successful local exit. 7. Single Biggest Lesson From Travis Kalanick Travis Kalanick’s operational superpower was walking into a meeting, asking pointed questions, and advancing weeks of expert thinking in 15 minutes. Great leaders create leverage by constantly exercising this problem-solving muscle and teaching the principles behind their decisions. (links in comments) @andrewgordonmac

I have interviewed 1,000 of the best operators of the last 10 years. Ironically, one of the best I have ever interviewed isn’t actually a Founder. He is the longest serving employee at @Uber. Andrew MacDonald. He rarely does interviews and this was the most insane behind the scenes at one of the worlds largest companies: - Spending $52M per week in China - Lessons from Travis Kalanick - Why autonomy is existential - How AI helps and hurts Uber There was so much in this, I took notes and have added them below: 1. How Does Uber Decide What New Products to Do Versus Not Do? At nearly $250 billion in gross bookings, new mobility or delivery products must show a credible path to billions in transaction volume within a few years to justify organizational resources. Anything smaller risks being swallowed by the demands of the core business. 2. How Companies Need to Extract AI Efficiency Measuring AI ROI on a per-employee basis is nearly impossible because saved hours simply get absorbed by other work. Instead, leaders should capture efficiency through OpEx by capping or reducing headcount targets and requiring teams to produce more with existing resources. 3. Uber Have a SWAT Team of the Best AI Engineers Uber created a dedicated pod of 30 elite AI engineers paired directly with G&A teams and business process owners. By rebuilding workflows from the ground up, they cut weekly pricing processes from 15 hours to two and marketing QA from two weeks to two days. 4. Why We Were Right to Focus on Core Strategy and Divest the Autonomy Business at the Time When COVID erased 84% of Uber’s mobility revenue in three weeks, the company divested its ATG autonomous driving unit. Exiting a capital-intensive race where Uber trailed competitors freed the company to focus on turning its core marketplace into a cash-flowing machine. 5. Will Uber Have More or Fewer Employees in Five Years’ Time? While AI will create entirely new industries, execution-heavy enterprise functions will see significant headcount contraction. Roles centered on customer support, sales ops, content production, and reporting analytics will face substantial augmentation and partial replacement by AI agents. 6. Crazy Story Number One From Working in China At the peak of its market-share war with DiDi in China, Uber burned $52 million per week on price subsidies alone. Competing without access to WeChat made winning nearly impossible, but aggressive capital deployment gave Uber the leverage needed to negotiate a successful local exit. 7. Single Biggest Lesson From Travis Kalanick Travis Kalanick’s operational superpower was walking into a meeting, asking pointed questions, and advancing weeks of expert thinking in 15 minutes. Great leaders create leverage by constantly exercising this problem-solving muscle and teaching the principles behind their decisions. (links in comments) @andrewgordonmac

I have interviewed 100 of the best growth leaders in the world. @MattSwulinski is easily top 3. (alongside @alexschultz and Brian Hale) He scaled Wispr Flow to over $100M in ARR and built a UGC machine. He scaled Superhuman from founder personally onboarding every customer to a growth machine with $50M ARR. If you are an early stage founder or growth leader, this will be the best episode you will listen to this year! I condensed my biggest lessons from the discussion below: 1. The E-Commerce Playbook Is the Right Playbook for SaaS The e-commerce playbook, where every dollar spent ties directly to a purchase or conversion, is the right model for modern SaaS. With distribution becoming a critical moat in a crowded AI market, SaaS companies should deploy UGC creators, constantly test new creative, and diversify channels to build their brand. 2. Paid Acquisition Is the Fastest Way to Validate PLG Relying solely on organic content and word-of-mouth takes too long to validate product-market fit. Paid acquisition creates the fastest feedback loop for proving a PLG funnel works, allowing teams to test positioning, refine messaging, and optimize conversion within a single week. 3. You Only Need Three Core Channels to Scale to $10M ARR Startups often ruin their acquisition engines by trying to run ten channels poorly at once. Reaching the first $10M in ARR only requires mastering three core channels: video intent on Meta, search intent on Google, and lifecycle retention through email and SMS. 4. Scaling Paid Ads Requires 500 New Creatives Every Single Month On platforms like Meta, creative increasingly acts as the targeting algorithm. Scaling spend without hitting audience fatigue requires 400 to 500 new creative assets every month, produced through UGC revenue-share programs, specialized agencies, and internal teams. 5. How the Best Growth Leaders Test for True Spend Incrementally Blindly increasing ad spend wastes money on conversions that may have happened organically. The best growth leaders measure spend elasticity against ARR growth and run strict holdout tests to determine whether each additional dollar generates genuinely incremental revenue. 6. In Three Years, Companies Will Operate Like a Board of Directors Tech organizations are shifting away from manual execution. Within three years, lean human teams could operate more like boards of directors, spending 20% of their time on strategy while autonomous AI agents handle 80% of operational execution. 7. Fire Your Marketing Team if They Aren’t Systems Thinkers Marketers focused on repetitive manual tasks are becoming increasingly replaceable. High-performing teams need systems thinkers who can break their work into inputs and outputs, then build self-improving AI workflows that multiply their personal leverage by 10x. (links in comments)

I have interviewed 100 of the best growth leaders in the world. @MattSwulinski is easily top 3. (alongside @alexschultz and Brian Hale) He scaled Wispr Flow to over $100M in ARR and built a UGC machine. He scaled Superhuman from founder personally onboarding every customer to a growth machine with $50M ARR. If you are an early stage founder or growth leader, this will be the best episode you will listen to this year! I condensed my biggest lessons from the discussion below: 1. The E-Commerce Playbook Is the Right Playbook for SaaS The e-commerce playbook, where every dollar spent ties directly to a purchase or conversion, is the right model for modern SaaS. With distribution becoming a critical moat in a crowded AI market, SaaS companies should deploy UGC creators, constantly test new creative, and diversify channels to build their brand. 2. Paid Acquisition Is the Fastest Way to Validate PLG Relying solely on organic content and word-of-mouth takes too long to validate product-market fit. Paid acquisition creates the fastest feedback loop for proving a PLG funnel works, allowing teams to test positioning, refine messaging, and optimize conversion within a single week. 3. You Only Need Three Core Channels to Scale to $10M ARR Startups often ruin their acquisition engines by trying to run ten channels poorly at once. Reaching the first $10M in ARR only requires mastering three core channels: video intent on Meta, search intent on Google, and lifecycle retention through email and SMS. 4. Scaling Paid Ads Requires 500 New Creatives Every Single Month On platforms like Meta, creative increasingly acts as the targeting algorithm. Scaling spend without hitting audience fatigue requires 400 to 500 new creative assets every month, produced through UGC revenue-share programs, specialized agencies, and internal teams. 5. How the Best Growth Leaders Test for True Spend Incrementally Blindly increasing ad spend wastes money on conversions that may have happened organically. The best growth leaders measure spend elasticity against ARR growth and run strict holdout tests to determine whether each additional dollar generates genuinely incremental revenue. 6. In Three Years, Companies Will Operate Like a Board of Directors Tech organizations are shifting away from manual execution. Within three years, lean human teams could operate more like boards of directors, spending 20% of their time on strategy while autonomous AI agents handle 80% of operational execution. 7. Fire Your Marketing Team if They Aren’t Systems Thinkers Marketers focused on repetitive manual tasks are becoming increasingly replaceable. High-performing teams need systems thinkers who can break their work into inputs and outputs, then build self-improving AI workflows that multiply their personal leverage by 10x. (links in comments)

I have interviewed 100 of the best growth leaders in the world. @MattSwulinski is easily top 3. (alongside @alexschultz and Brian Hale) He scaled Wispr Flow to over $100M in ARR and built a UGC machine. He scaled Superhuman from founder personally onboarding every customer to a growth machine with $50M ARR. If you are an early stage founder or growth leader, this will be the best episode you will listen to this year! I condensed my biggest lessons from the discussion below: 1. The E-Commerce Playbook Is the Right Playbook for SaaS The e-commerce playbook, where every dollar spent ties directly to a purchase or conversion, is the right model for modern SaaS. With distribution becoming a critical moat in a crowded AI market, SaaS companies should deploy UGC creators, constantly test new creative, and diversify channels to build their brand. 2. Paid Acquisition Is the Fastest Way to Validate PLG Relying solely on organic content and word-of-mouth takes too long to validate product-market fit. Paid acquisition creates the fastest feedback loop for proving a PLG funnel works, allowing teams to test positioning, refine messaging, and optimize conversion within a single week. 3. You Only Need Three Core Channels to Scale to $10M ARR Startups often ruin their acquisition engines by trying to run ten channels poorly at once. Reaching the first $10M in ARR only requires mastering three core channels: video intent on Meta, search intent on Google, and lifecycle retention through email and SMS. 4. Scaling Paid Ads Requires 500 New Creatives Every Single Month On platforms like Meta, creative increasingly acts as the targeting algorithm. Scaling spend without hitting audience fatigue requires 400 to 500 new creative assets every month, produced through UGC revenue-share programs, specialized agencies, and internal teams. 5. How the Best Growth Leaders Test for True Spend Incrementally Blindly increasing ad spend wastes money on conversions that may have happened organically. The best growth leaders measure spend elasticity against ARR growth and run strict holdout tests to determine whether each additional dollar generates genuinely incremental revenue. 6. In Three Years, Companies Will Operate Like a Board of Directors Tech organizations are shifting away from manual execution. Within three years, lean human teams could operate more like boards of directors, spending 20% of their time on strategy while autonomous AI agents handle 80% of operational execution. 7. Fire Your Marketing Team if They Aren’t Systems Thinkers Marketers focused on repetitive manual tasks are becoming increasingly replaceable. High-performing teams need systems thinkers who can break their work into inputs and outputs, then build self-improving AI workflows that multiply their personal leverage by 10x. (links in comments)

I have interviewed 100 of the best growth leaders in the world. @MattSwulinski is easily top 3. (alongside @alexschultz and Brian Hale) He scaled Wispr Flow to over $100M in ARR and built a UGC machine. He scaled Superhuman from founder personally onboarding every customer to a growth machine with $50M ARR. If you are an early stage founder or growth leader, this will be the best episode you will listen to this year! I condensed my biggest lessons from the discussion below: 1. The E-Commerce Playbook Is the Right Playbook for SaaS The e-commerce playbook, where every dollar spent ties directly to a purchase or conversion, is the right model for modern SaaS. With distribution becoming a critical moat in a crowded AI market, SaaS companies should deploy UGC creators, constantly test new creative, and diversify channels to build their brand. 2. Paid Acquisition Is the Fastest Way to Validate PLG Relying solely on organic content and word-of-mouth takes too long to validate product-market fit. Paid acquisition creates the fastest feedback loop for proving a PLG funnel works, allowing teams to test positioning, refine messaging, and optimize conversion within a single week. 3. You Only Need Three Core Channels to Scale to $10M ARR Startups often ruin their acquisition engines by trying to run ten channels poorly at once. Reaching the first $10M in ARR only requires mastering three core channels: video intent on Meta, search intent on Google, and lifecycle retention through email and SMS. 4. Scaling Paid Ads Requires 500 New Creatives Every Single Month On platforms like Meta, creative increasingly acts as the targeting algorithm. Scaling spend without hitting audience fatigue requires 400 to 500 new creative assets every month, produced through UGC revenue-share programs, specialized agencies, and internal teams. 5. How the Best Growth Leaders Test for True Spend Incrementally Blindly increasing ad spend wastes money on conversions that may have happened organically. The best growth leaders measure spend elasticity against ARR growth and run strict holdout tests to determine whether each additional dollar generates genuinely incremental revenue. 6. In Three Years, Companies Will Operate Like a Board of Directors Tech organizations are shifting away from manual execution. Within three years, lean human teams could operate more like boards of directors, spending 20% of their time on strategy while autonomous AI agents handle 80% of operational execution. 7. Fire Your Marketing Team if They Aren’t Systems Thinkers Marketers focused on repetitive manual tasks are becoming increasingly replaceable. High-performing teams need systems thinkers who can break their work into inputs and outputs, then build self-improving AI workflows that multiply their personal leverage by 10x. (links in comments)

I have interviewed 100 of the best growth leaders in the world. @MattSwulinski is easily top 3. (alongside @alexschultz and Brian Hale) He scaled Wispr Flow to over $100M in ARR and built a UGC machine. He scaled Superhuman from founder personally onboarding every customer to a growth machine with $50M ARR. If you are an early stage founder or growth leader, this will be the best episode you will listen to this year! I condensed my biggest lessons from the discussion below: 1. The E-Commerce Playbook Is the Right Playbook for SaaS The e-commerce playbook, where every dollar spent ties directly to a purchase or conversion, is the right model for modern SaaS. With distribution becoming a critical moat in a crowded AI market, SaaS companies should deploy UGC creators, constantly test new creative, and diversify channels to build their brand. 2. Paid Acquisition Is the Fastest Way to Validate PLG Relying solely on organic content and word-of-mouth takes too long to validate product-market fit. Paid acquisition creates the fastest feedback loop for proving a PLG funnel works, allowing teams to test positioning, refine messaging, and optimize conversion within a single week. 3. You Only Need Three Core Channels to Scale to $10M ARR Startups often ruin their acquisition engines by trying to run ten channels poorly at once. Reaching the first $10M in ARR only requires mastering three core channels: video intent on Meta, search intent on Google, and lifecycle retention through email and SMS. 4. Scaling Paid Ads Requires 500 New Creatives Every Single Month On platforms like Meta, creative increasingly acts as the targeting algorithm. Scaling spend without hitting audience fatigue requires 400 to 500 new creative assets every month, produced through UGC revenue-share programs, specialized agencies, and internal teams. 5. How the Best Growth Leaders Test for True Spend Incrementally Blindly increasing ad spend wastes money on conversions that may have happened organically. The best growth leaders measure spend elasticity against ARR growth and run strict holdout tests to determine whether each additional dollar generates genuinely incremental revenue. 6. In Three Years, Companies Will Operate Like a Board of Directors Tech organizations are shifting away from manual execution. Within three years, lean human teams could operate more like boards of directors, spending 20% of their time on strategy while autonomous AI agents handle 80% of operational execution. 7. Fire Your Marketing Team if They Aren’t Systems Thinkers Marketers focused on repetitive manual tasks are becoming increasingly replaceable. High-performing teams need systems thinkers who can break their work into inputs and outputs, then build self-improving AI workflows that multiply their personal leverage by 10x. (links in comments)

I have interviewed 100 of the best growth leaders in the world. @MattSwulinski is easily top 3. (alongside @alexschultz and Brian Hale) He scaled Wispr Flow to over $100M in ARR and built a UGC machine. He scaled Superhuman from founder personally onboarding every customer to a growth machine with $50M ARR. If you are an early stage founder or growth leader, this will be the best episode you will listen to this year! I condensed my biggest lessons from the discussion below: 1. The E-Commerce Playbook Is the Right Playbook for SaaS The e-commerce playbook, where every dollar spent ties directly to a purchase or conversion, is the right model for modern SaaS. With distribution becoming a critical moat in a crowded AI market, SaaS companies should deploy UGC creators, constantly test new creative, and diversify channels to build their brand. 2. Paid Acquisition Is the Fastest Way to Validate PLG Relying solely on organic content and word-of-mouth takes too long to validate product-market fit. Paid acquisition creates the fastest feedback loop for proving a PLG funnel works, allowing teams to test positioning, refine messaging, and optimize conversion within a single week. 3. You Only Need Three Core Channels to Scale to $10M ARR Startups often ruin their acquisition engines by trying to run ten channels poorly at once. Reaching the first $10M in ARR only requires mastering three core channels: video intent on Meta, search intent on Google, and lifecycle retention through email and SMS. 4. Scaling Paid Ads Requires 500 New Creatives Every Single Month On platforms like Meta, creative increasingly acts as the targeting algorithm. Scaling spend without hitting audience fatigue requires 400 to 500 new creative assets every month, produced through UGC revenue-share programs, specialized agencies, and internal teams. 5. How the Best Growth Leaders Test for True Spend Incrementally Blindly increasing ad spend wastes money on conversions that may have happened organically. The best growth leaders measure spend elasticity against ARR growth and run strict holdout tests to determine whether each additional dollar generates genuinely incremental revenue. 6. In Three Years, Companies Will Operate Like a Board of Directors Tech organizations are shifting away from manual execution. Within three years, lean human teams could operate more like boards of directors, spending 20% of their time on strategy while autonomous AI agents handle 80% of operational execution. 7. Fire Your Marketing Team if They Aren’t Systems Thinkers Marketers focused on repetitive manual tasks are becoming increasingly replaceable. High-performing teams need systems thinkers who can break their work into inputs and outputs, then build self-improving AI workflows that multiply their personal leverage by 10x. (links in comments)

I have interviewed 100 of the best growth leaders in the world. @MattSwulinski is easily top 3. (alongside @alexschultz and Brian Hale) He scaled Wispr Flow to over $100M in ARR and built a UGC machine. He scaled Superhuman from founder personally onboarding every customer to a growth machine with $50M ARR. If you are an early stage founder or growth leader, this will be the best episode you will listen to this year! I condensed my biggest lessons from the discussion below: 1. The E-Commerce Playbook Is the Right Playbook for SaaS The e-commerce playbook, where every dollar spent ties directly to a purchase or conversion, is the right model for modern SaaS. With distribution becoming a critical moat in a crowded AI market, SaaS companies should deploy UGC creators, constantly test new creative, and diversify channels to build their brand. 2. Paid Acquisition Is the Fastest Way to Validate PLG Relying solely on organic content and word-of-mouth takes too long to validate product-market fit. Paid acquisition creates the fastest feedback loop for proving a PLG funnel works, allowing teams to test positioning, refine messaging, and optimize conversion within a single week. 3. You Only Need Three Core Channels to Scale to $10M ARR Startups often ruin their acquisition engines by trying to run ten channels poorly at once. Reaching the first $10M in ARR only requires mastering three core channels: video intent on Meta, search intent on Google, and lifecycle retention through email and SMS. 4. Scaling Paid Ads Requires 500 New Creatives Every Single Month On platforms like Meta, creative increasingly acts as the targeting algorithm. Scaling spend without hitting audience fatigue requires 400 to 500 new creative assets every month, produced through UGC revenue-share programs, specialized agencies, and internal teams. 5. How the Best Growth Leaders Test for True Spend Incrementally Blindly increasing ad spend wastes money on conversions that may have happened organically. The best growth leaders measure spend elasticity against ARR growth and run strict holdout tests to determine whether each additional dollar generates genuinely incremental revenue. 6. In Three Years, Companies Will Operate Like a Board of Directors Tech organizations are shifting away from manual execution. Within three years, lean human teams could operate more like boards of directors, spending 20% of their time on strategy while autonomous AI agents handle 80% of operational execution. 7. Fire Your Marketing Team if They Aren’t Systems Thinkers Marketers focused on repetitive manual tasks are becoming increasingly replaceable. High-performing teams need systems thinkers who can break their work into inputs and outputs, then build self-improving AI workflows that multiply their personal leverage by 10x. (links in comments)

There are three ugly truths right now that we are not admitting. 1. The valuations we have from 2021 are representative of true value today. Airtable was valued at $11Bn and sold for $2BN. Canva was valued at $44BN and now is slashing growth targets and getting cannibalised by OpenAI. 2. That any of our companies can actually hire A* talent when they are competing against the might of compensation packages from OpenAI and Anthropic. Demis Hassabis and Jeff Dean do not even stick with the talent exodus from Google. 3. Dilution is worse than it has ever been. SBC is higher than it has ever been. Investor returns will be hit. We will see CEO “superhero pay packets” like Nik @ Revolut and Elon Musk’s normalise. We discuss all of this and more in the best podcast you will listen to this week with @jasonlk & @rodriscoll. My notes below: 1. Any Investment Where the Founder Leaves, I Write It to Zero In the fast-moving AI era, non-founder executives often lack the agility, vision, and obsession required to navigate existential platform shifts. When a founder steps away, late-stage software companies risk losing their willingness to make radical pivots, turning once-promising portfolio stars into functional zeros. 2. How Much Is Canva Truly Worth Today? Even category-defining software companies face sharp valuation compression when growth slows from 30% to 20% while AI inference and serving costs rise. As markets penalize margin degradation and subsidized AI features, private-market valuations are rapidly resetting toward lower public-market revenue multiples. 3. Insane Levels of Dilution Are Killing Returns Extreme dilution and inflated entry prices are structurally compressing venture returns across both seed and late stages. Investors may need to model for up to 75% dilution and effectively 4x their initial entry price to understand realistic outcomes, forcing a rethink of traditional power-law math. 4. Paying the Bill in ’26 for ’23 Hesitancy When generational platform shifts happen, hesitation compounds. Incumbents and investors that failed to make aggressive architectural and product bets on AI in 2023 may pay for that caution through competitive displacement and revenue erosion in 2026 and 2027. 5. The Only Way You Prove That You’re Not Dying Is by Growing In a market dominated by AI displacement narratives and short-seller memes, verbal defenses and incremental product updates mean little. The only way software companies can silence existential narratives and defend their valuation multiples is by delivering undeniable top-line growth. 6. Liquidity Will Only Come at the End of the Journey Private-market investing requires LPs and founders to endure years of valuation volatility. Interim markdowns and market anxiety matter far less than the ultimate outcome. Meaningful liquidity often arrives only after a company successfully navigates the platform shift and reaches maturity. 7. They Say It’s Not About the Money, It’s About the Money Despite rhetoric around mission, public benefit, and governance, financial incentives still drive executive decisions and talent retention. In a hyper-competitive AI market, keeping true superstars requires “god-tier” compensation packages that go far beyond traditional corporate pay structures. (links in comments)

There are three ugly truths right now that we are not admitting. 1. The valuations we have from 2021 are representative of true value today. Airtable was valued at $11Bn and sold for $2BN. Canva was valued at $44BN and now is slashing growth targets and getting cannibalised by OpenAI. 2. That any of our companies can actually hire A* talent when they are competing against the might of compensation packages from OpenAI and Anthropic. Demis Hassabis and Jeff Dean do not even stick with the talent exodus from Google. 3. Dilution is worse than it has ever been. SBC is higher than it has ever been. Investor returns will be hit. We will see CEO “superhero pay packets” like Nik @ Revolut and Elon Musk’s normalise. We discuss all of this and more in the best podcast you will listen to this week with @jasonlk & @rodriscoll. My notes below: 1. Any Investment Where the Founder Leaves, I Write It to Zero In the fast-moving AI era, non-founder executives often lack the agility, vision, and obsession required to navigate existential platform shifts. When a founder steps away, late-stage software companies risk losing their willingness to make radical pivots, turning once-promising portfolio stars into functional zeros. 2. How Much Is Canva Truly Worth Today? Even category-defining software companies face sharp valuation compression when growth slows from 30% to 20% while AI inference and serving costs rise. As markets penalize margin degradation and subsidized AI features, private-market valuations are rapidly resetting toward lower public-market revenue multiples. 3. Insane Levels of Dilution Are Killing Returns Extreme dilution and inflated entry prices are structurally compressing venture returns across both seed and late stages. Investors may need to model for up to 75% dilution and effectively 4x their initial entry price to understand realistic outcomes, forcing a rethink of traditional power-law math. 4. Paying the Bill in ’26 for ’23 Hesitancy When generational platform shifts happen, hesitation compounds. Incumbents and investors that failed to make aggressive architectural and product bets on AI in 2023 may pay for that caution through competitive displacement and revenue erosion in 2026 and 2027. 5. The Only Way You Prove That You’re Not Dying Is by Growing In a market dominated by AI displacement narratives and short-seller memes, verbal defenses and incremental product updates mean little. The only way software companies can silence existential narratives and defend their valuation multiples is by delivering undeniable top-line growth. 6. Liquidity Will Only Come at the End of the Journey Private-market investing requires LPs and founders to endure years of valuation volatility. Interim markdowns and market anxiety matter far less than the ultimate outcome. Meaningful liquidity often arrives only after a company successfully navigates the platform shift and reaches maturity. 7. They Say It’s Not About the Money, It’s About the Money Despite rhetoric around mission, public benefit, and governance, financial incentives still drive executive decisions and talent retention. In a hyper-competitive AI market, keeping true superstars requires “god-tier” compensation packages that go far beyond traditional corporate pay structures. (links in comments)

There are three ugly truths right now that we are not admitting. 1. The valuations we have from 2021 are representative of true value today. Airtable was valued at $11Bn and sold for $2BN. Canva was valued at $44BN and now is slashing growth targets and getting cannibalised by OpenAI. 2. That any of our companies can actually hire A* talent when they are competing against the might of compensation packages from OpenAI and Anthropic. Demis Hassabis and Jeff Dean do not even stick with the talent exodus from Google. 3. Dilution is worse than it has ever been. SBC is higher than it has ever been. Investor returns will be hit. We will see CEO “superhero pay packets” like Nik @ Revolut and Elon Musk’s normalise. We discuss all of this and more in the best podcast you will listen to this week with @jasonlk & @rodriscoll. My notes below: 1. Any Investment Where the Founder Leaves, I Write It to Zero In the fast-moving AI era, non-founder executives often lack the agility, vision, and obsession required to navigate existential platform shifts. When a founder steps away, late-stage software companies risk losing their willingness to make radical pivots, turning once-promising portfolio stars into functional zeros. 2. How Much Is Canva Truly Worth Today? Even category-defining software companies face sharp valuation compression when growth slows from 30% to 20% while AI inference and serving costs rise. As markets penalize margin degradation and subsidized AI features, private-market valuations are rapidly resetting toward lower public-market revenue multiples. 3. Insane Levels of Dilution Are Killing Returns Extreme dilution and inflated entry prices are structurally compressing venture returns across both seed and late stages. Investors may need to model for up to 75% dilution and effectively 4x their initial entry price to understand realistic outcomes, forcing a rethink of traditional power-law math. 4. Paying the Bill in ’26 for ’23 Hesitancy When generational platform shifts happen, hesitation compounds. Incumbents and investors that failed to make aggressive architectural and product bets on AI in 2023 may pay for that caution through competitive displacement and revenue erosion in 2026 and 2027. 5. The Only Way You Prove That You’re Not Dying Is by Growing In a market dominated by AI displacement narratives and short-seller memes, verbal defenses and incremental product updates mean little. The only way software companies can silence existential narratives and defend their valuation multiples is by delivering undeniable top-line growth. 6. Liquidity Will Only Come at the End of the Journey Private-market investing requires LPs and founders to endure years of valuation volatility. Interim markdowns and market anxiety matter far less than the ultimate outcome. Meaningful liquidity often arrives only after a company successfully navigates the platform shift and reaches maturity. 7. They Say It’s Not About the Money, It’s About the Money Despite rhetoric around mission, public benefit, and governance, financial incentives still drive executive decisions and talent retention. In a hyper-competitive AI market, keeping true superstars requires “god-tier” compensation packages that go far beyond traditional corporate pay structures. (links in comments)

Lovable just raised $400M at a $13.3B valuation to build the business that helps build businesses. Apps built on Lovable now get 900M visits every month, and we’ve quadrupled ARR in the last 12 months. Since we started, Lovable has become the place where founders create million dollar businesses, business leaders spin up new product lines, and people inside companies rewire workflows and build tools that fit their exact needs, typically at a fraction of what software used to cost. There’s a lot more to do. We will create the most intuitive platform to build and run a business. That means: - Understanding what success looks like for you, then helping you achieve it. Not only ensuring your software works but also that you can attract customers, improve workflows, and grow your company. - Deeper integrations that work with your existing tech stack so you can build the interface to your entire business across sales, ops, marketing, finance, etc. - Becoming the safest platform to build and run your business on, which means secured code by default and that you get help to make safe decisions. As you build, the platform carries more of the security weight, spotting risks and helping you close them, so you can move fast without needing to become a security expert. - Staying model-independent and orchestrating the best models for every task so you don’t have to. We’ll continue to absorb the complexity of evaluating and teaching models to route to the best ones in the background, to minimize cognitive load for our users. As more people depend on Lovable, the quality standards our team is driving increase every single day. We’re growing the team with people with a founder mindset: curious, ambitious, and who think end to end. Model training, product geniuses, infrastructure tinkerers, and security are the priority. The world is full of ambitious people with deep knowledge of problems worth solving. Very few of them have historically had the power to act on them. Our ambition is to give people that power, and then help them achieve more than they thought possible. Thank you to everyone who has followed along our journey. Thank you to @MenloVentures for leading, the Scaleup Europe Fund (managed by @eqt) for co-leading, and all of the new and returning investors who recognize our global ambitions and will help make them a reality. We have made a lot of progress but we are nowhere close to done, it’s still day zero. See our blog: t.co/d1L2ZQPjtN