easy hack for founders looking for a B2B startup idea: go check out the portfolio of a middle market private equity fund for inspo a bunch of boring business services co's or legacy software that AI will light a torch to

hottest club in SF

One of the most joyous days But we also remember the hostages that didn’t make it home May their memories be a blessing

creative control is alive and here simulon allows anyone to shoot the next Jurassic Park with just their phone congrats Divesh Naidoo and team Simulon

young founders often latch onto the first "real world" inefficiency they face to solve for their startup: - signing their first apartment lease - antiquated property managers - slow immigration lawyers - filing taxes for first time - expense reports at their first job - movers

I really wish we could agree on separate acronyms for: ARR = Annual Recurring Revenue ARR = Annual RUN RATE Revenue The ambiguity can lead to breakage of trust when a founder implies the first but it’s really the second. They’re not the same

SF rules

Michael Goldstein didn't get into speedrun (yet!), but we are planning to give him a 20k grant just for being awesome 🙂. Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸's idea of course.

people underestimate the magic of a strong cold email met an undergrad last week who has had internships via cold emails at ElevenLabs, Zoox, WhisperFlow, xAI, Meta, Replit also cold emailed his favorite podcast & became a collaborator it works if you ask (strategically)

GM 🌉

I encourage founders I work with to write a memo (to be shared after first meeting) vs long form pitch deck why? - forces clarity of thought - allows you to address the FAQ directly - the investor can communicate back to their team cribbing on your blessed language - provides

@brycent_ - One liner - Team overview - Problem / Market overivew - Product overview - GTM strategy - Business model overview - Traction - 5 year vision zoom out - competitive landscape - use of proceeds / next 12 mo plan

Phillip is a machine! In addition to having a baby 2 weeks before demo day and surpassing $1M cARR during a16z speedrun 🧊, Phillip also somehow beats my Whoop scores each week

so with Starlink on United flights, what will the etiquette be for zoom calls? how long until we get business class sections like this? 😅

Grok is my go to for any prompt requiring 'street smarts' vs 'book smarts' - pop culture - sports - uncensored risqué topics - GenZ slang - writing this tweet

>> lawyer friend outside of tech bubble last 2 years: all these AI tools are ass. Don’t bring them up to me again >> last night (post GPT-5): Harvey is the greatest thing in the world slowly, then all at once

one of my favorite recently learned flight hacks is using an EU power adapter on flights super annoying how the US adapter for a power block always falls out

the co-op model from Waterloo and Northeastern needs to be adopted more broadly >> most US degrees: students come out of school with a mountain of debt and, increasingly, have trouble landing an entry level job at a top tech company >> co-op program: students actually MAKE

one tell tale sign of an inexperienced fundraiser: “We’re having lots of great conversations… ^good! “… we want to close the round [T+8 weeks from now]” ^🫠 basically signals your round has zero interest if that’s the pace things are moving. better off keeping it vague

do not waste time negotiating pricing with your "design partners" I've worked with 50+ AI teams at the 0->1 stage -- Sometimes I see teams mistakenly overthink pricing in the first few weeks of building a product ==> The only thing you should care about is demonstrating product