Would you give up a "dream job" to chase your childhood dream? Elena did. This is her story.

We just finished 12 weeks of a16z a16z speedrun 🧊 , here are the 5 most valuable things I got from the program:

"Optimism wins." —Adam Draper ⏻

There’s no better way for a founder to be intro’d to a VC than by another founder 🤝

Getting the YC batch together to share fundraising horror stories from the last few days. The behavior of some investors is shocking 🤦‍♂️ Founders all talk. Stop it.

The real moats in 2025: specific workflows, proprietary data with real switching costs, distribution, and UX that makes AI disappear into the job-to-be-done. Simultaneously: we are early (only a % are using AI properly) so this is an amazing time to start a startup.

we often talk about "founder energy" a16z speedrun 🧊 - how some founders can channel a sense of momentum, energy, & intensity in all their interactions we've also observed it can be a learned skill. a few tactics: - fast decision-making: make decisions quickly even with imperfect

one of the biggest changes in the AI era is solo founders becoming much more common it used to be a red flag for many VCs if you only had one founder (thinking was you couldn't collaborate/hire/needed complementary skillset) but now it's more common than ever shout out

most active Series A/B firms the past 6 months , sorted by highest number of deals done a16z GC Sequoia Accel Khosla Bessemer Insight Lightspeed GV Norwest NEA Founders Fund 8VC Menlo Bain Index Lux Redpoint KP OrbiMed Pantera Thrive Battery Felicis Headline Ribbit

I’ve got two more investments to make this year. Let’s go! 🚀🚀🚀

May I angel you?

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In the last two weeks, I've been ruminating on this post from Sam Altman. It's a simple observation, but one that cuts to the heart of entrepreneurship and venture capital. While most of the world minimizes risk, every great enterprise exists because someone once chose to make a

Optimism wins.

I just decided to raise my own Venture Fund. Who wants an angel cheque?

if you are an early stage investor, you are going to want to take a look

added Baobab Ventures to the list of new VC funds under $200M in size docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

From our family to yours, wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving

Thrive Holdings is a permanent capital vehicle (initial round of $1B) that acquires and holds legacy businesses like accounting & IT services and transforms them with AI/tech. OpenAI now has equity and will train models for tasks with company-specific data.

returning to SF post thanksgiving i'm struck with gratitude that silicon valley exists. it's really a place of 3 rare miracles: 1) a miracle the smartest folks from all over the world voluntarily move here to build their dreams and find kindred souls - often leaving behind cushy