With YC Demo Day approaching, it's helpful to remember that the "hot" companies now are very rarely the top companies in 10 years. Airbnb had such a hard time fundraising that @paulg personally emailed top VCs telling them to invest and they still said no:

I have zero context how or why this lovely, delicate animation was approved by leadership. But I'm 98% certain it wasn't pitched with business impact jargon. Instead someone probably advocated hard for delight — or simply showed leadership what sheer delight feels like.

Introducing ALOHA 🏖: 𝐀 𝐋ow-cost 𝐎pen-source 𝐇𝐀rdware System for Bimanual Teleoperation After 8 months iterating @stanford and 2 months working with beta users, we are finally ready to release it! Here is what ALOHA is capable of:

we are starting our rollout of ChatGPT plugins. you can install plugins to help with a wide variety of tasks. we are excited to see what developers create! openai.com/blog/chatgpt-plug…

1) VC/PE multiples are lower than public equity multiples for the first time in 10 years per Morgan Stanley. Still not there in SaaS in my experience, but there in most other parts of Tech. VC opportunity set increasingly attractive.

Ted Lasso is one of the world's best TV shows. The character was developed 20 years ago at a comedy club in Amsterdam. Jason Sudeikis is now paid $1 million per episode, and the show has signed licensing deals with Nike, EA Sports, and the Premier League. Here's the story 👇

Buffett: "We will always be prepared for the thousand-year flood. If it occurs we will be selling life jackets to the unprepared. It is entirely predictable that people will occasionally panic, but not at all predictable when."

History has a way of taking revenge on those who think the past is irrelevant

We’ve seen a gazillion startups using OpenAI APIs to do “co-pilot for X”. What’s next? Enter *physical* co-pilot! Here’s a compelling demo: you improvise by playing a “low resolution” piano, and the co-pilot compiles it real-time to Hi-Fi music! It unleashes our inner pianist.🧵

In 2017 an app launched, and one semester later had 80% of Yale students as users. Soon after, they grew 7x and expanded to 13+ campuses The app? Snackpass How did Snackpass achieve viral growth and where can it go from here as it tackles the $600 billion food takeout market?

Microsoft has always had a great philosophy around accessibility and introduced me to the idea of temporary disability. It’s a great way to broaden one’s perspective on how much impact making your product more accessible has.

1/ Vista has been in the market for ~1 year for their $20bn Fund 8. Based on press reports, the fund is only ~50% of the way to its target. A few slides from the fundraising deck below.

I love watching early pitch videos of iconic startups. $60B+ value created below. But at the start, there was only a raw deck and big dreams. Here are 7 behind-the-scenes gems ⬇️

PREDICTION: There's a mass extinction event coming for early & mid-stage companies. Late '23 & '24 will make the '08 financial crisis look quaint for startups. Below I explain when, why & how it will start & offer *detailed advice to founders* on surviving the looming die-off. /1

Tiny announced its IPO with a near $1 billion valuation. I was the first employee. Here’s what I learned:

Just discovered that on iPhone Notes app, swiping right increases the indent on that line. Equally as big as the iPhone calculator app swipe trick. I’m shook. What other iPhone hacks am I missing?!?!

How to dodge a question like a Jedi master: "You're a very experienced reporter. You know I can't comment on that. I know you know I can't comment on that. You know I know you know I can't comment on that. In the spirit of shortness of life, why do you ask?" Way to go @sama 🤣

The biggest mistake I see Angels and other pre-seed investors making is participating in underfunded rounds. Not giving the company enough money to achieve KPIs that unlock the next round.

Is this a bug or just massive inflation? @Wealthfront @wltheng

"Prompting isn't a skill. Give me your prompt and I can make your art." I've gotten this kind of comment a lot, and it's obviously a non-argument, but I want to push back on it from a different direction than I usually do. I want to push back from the world of metal-casting. 🧵