Teen-Founded AI Startup Hits $1B, Draws Major Brands
A startup founded by teenagers is already valued at over $1 billion. Aaru is betting that AI bots can predict human behavior more accurately than traditional analytics. Major brands like McDonald’s and EY are already paying attention. https://t.co/49wjGtcmnE @VranicaWSJ @wsj
Boost LinkedIn Engagement with AI-Generated Posts
Trying to get more involved with the @LinkedIn community, but are finding that your posts don't get engagement? Use AI to make 'em more engaging. Here's how to give it a try: https://t.co/y53idalzyJ #linkedin #chatgpt #ai #socialmedia https://t.co/1A3x3iQXTW
Thai Ship Burns Near Oman Amid Hormuz Transit Controversy
for whom?! Iranian tankers shipping Iranian oil? Right now there's a Thai cargo ship on fire off the Coast of Oman that tried to transit the Strait of Hormuz. Maybe ask them if they think its working out "very well"
Full Employment Requires Taming Inflation, Not Rate Cuts
My full write up on inflation. Important to remember that we can not sustain or obtain full employment unless inflation is detailed. For those arguing the #FOMC should cut to shore up employment and ease inequality. Cuts in late 2024...
Trump Doubts Iranian Mines, Urges Tankers Through Hormuz
President Donald Trump said he didn’t believe Iran was laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Asked Wednesday whether Iran had laid mines in the strait, Trump told reporters, “We don’t think so. Trump also urged oil companies to send their...
Diesel Spikes 96¢/Gal, Straining U.S. Supply Chains
Diesel prices for U.S. truckers rose a record 96 cents a gallon this past week, a sign of the financial strains hitting supply chains following the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. https://t.co/C9K90LaXGX
Measure Reddit Impact Beyond Clicks: Reach, Sentiment, Insight
Here is the mistake I see B2B teams make over and over. They measure Reddit success like paid ads. Clicks. Leads. Immediate conversions. That is the wrong scoreboard. A smarter framework looks like this. 1) Reach. Many Reddit users never log in. A post with...
Build Systems After You’ve Done It, Not Before
You wrote an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for something you’ve never done. That’s not a system. That’s a guess. You haven’t onboarded a single client yet, but you have a 12-step onboarding document. You haven’t hired anyone, but you’ve got a...
DLP Reinvented: Jazz Uses NLP to Guard GenAI Data
Traditional DLP was built for email attachments and USB drives. That world is gone. Jazz raised $61M to rebuild DLP from scratch: natural language policies instead of regex. Every time someone pastes data into a GenAI tool, they create flows your DLP...
Conflict Is a Supply Shock, Not Demand‑driven Inflation
“More specifically, this conflict represents a supply shock, not demand driven inflation, which from a monetary policy perspective makes a very significant difference, as a supply shock will reduce demand, consumption, and consequently growth.” - Rieder
Replit Secures $400M to Power AI‑Driven Creativity
We’ve raised $400M at a $9B valuation. Investors include Georgian, G Squared, Prysm, 1789, YC, Coatue, a16z, Craft, and QIA, with strategic investments from Accenture, Databricks, Okta, and Tether. We’re also lucky to have incredible individuals backing us, including Shaq and...
AI-Powered Profit Forecasting for Consistent Margin Growth
Predict profit like a prophet. With the Prophit Engine from CTC. Clarity, accountability and capacity woven into a single human operator. Forecast more accurately Grow contribution margin more consistently All while saving money. Combining the explosion of AI with the...
Core Inflation Remains Steady Over Past Three Years
Here's monthly seasonally adjusted core. It's been pretty stable for the last three years (perhaps not at the level you'd prefer.) https://t.co/1r4VLXWf1S
Cheapest Payroll Pick Became Our Costliest Mistake
Choosing TriNet over JustWorks for price reasons was the most expensive decision we've ever made
Serial Acquirer’s Playbook: 35 Deals in $50‑500M Manufacturing
Traveled to a Serial Acquirers conference in Stockholm, Sweden. The wifi at the hotel is slow, so it takes a little longer to upload the podcast episode with Eric Wiklendt of Speyside Equity, where he shares how they’ve acquired over 35...
AI Replaced $396K CFO, Saved $216K Annually
At my company Full Focus, we were paying $33,000/month for fractional CFO and outsourced accounting. $396K annually. We restructured around AI—hired an AI architect and controller support for $15K/month. Saved $216,000 a year. And the financial analysis we’re getting now is...
New Dev Tool Startups Put Founders Directly on Social Media
One very interesting change in “the new guard” of innovative dev tools startups: Many of their founders + lots of their devs are on social media, responding to their customers (devs), sharing new features / bugfixes etc Stark contrast to past ones...
HR Must Have a Plan for International Assignments
Sending employees abroad? This week proved why HR needs a plan @HR_Exec https://t.co/pkmsbX5P2S #HCM #HRM #HumanResources #HRTech #CHRO #FutureofHR
All‑in on AI? Most Leaders Lack Governance Confidence
Leaders say they're "all in on AI," yet only a small fraction feel confident in their AI governance and data privacy practices. If you're deploying AI agents w/o a clear privacy strategy, you're not innovating - you're gambling. #AI #DataPrivacy https://t.co/1JJW0fGZaG
ECB Warns of Inflation Risks Despite Muted Growth Concerns
The first is interesting here, as the cut-off date was well before the flurry in oil prices. You can basically at this make a reasonable case for anything from 0.1pp to 0.4pp extra on the 2026 headline forecast.
Iran Urges US to Exit Middle East, Pivot to Asia
Iran's demand is the U.S. leave the Middle East. Basically, do the pivot to Asia for real.
Private Credit Becomes Subprime as Fraud Spreads
Private credit is the subprime of this cycle. Fraud is accumulating across asset classes. Automated underwriting blessing whatever numbers it gets fed. Nobody cares until everyone cares at the same time.
Selling Too Early Costs More Than Lost Deal
Someone asked this question in Hampton’s Slack: “what’s the most expensive lesson you’ve learned?” - My cofounder Joe lost a $100M deal when Facebook changed the algo mid-acquisition. - Another took a company from $9M EBITDA to -$5M in one year. - A third...
System-First AI Tool Halves Content Repurposing Time
I built a content repurposing system in Claude. Now, before we get our panties in a bunch, this isn't some bullshit AI-garbage slop. This is a SYSTEM first, AI tool second. That means it will take time to setup, time...
Accredited Investors Get Limited Access to AI & Biotech Gems
SoFi and Templum Open Limited Window to Invest in OpenAI, Perplexity, and Colossal via Cosmos Fund March 5-30 window for accredited investors. Choose individual assets or all three: OpenAI (AI infrastructure), Perplexity (AI search, 22M MAUs), Colossal (decacorn biotech). Private market...
Leveraged Buybacks, Not AI, Drive IBM, Oracle, CRM
Levering up to buy back stock is the playbook of IBM and old Oracle... not a company pioneering a new AI age CRM is borrowing to buy time, not growth
Adopt a Collect, Organ
Notes. Screenshots. Slack messages. Voice memos. Random ideas at 11:47PM. You’re collecting nonstop. But without a daily organise habit, chaos wins. COD closes the loop. Collect. Organise. Do. Simple framework. Massive mental relief. https://t.co/edEGsruY96 https://t.co/jfmGGIFCdT
AI Era Fuels Solo VC-Backed Startups
I've met several VC-funded one-person startups in the past few months - another sign of the AI coding age.
India Backs IEA Emergency Oil Release, Pledges Market Stability
Very pleased to read the Government of India's supportive statement for @IEA's collective action to release emergency oil stocks to address disruptions in global oil markets – and that India stands ready to take appropriate measures to support global market...
Fed Rate Path Repriced: Terminal Rate 3
Rather dramatic repricing of the Fed rate path vs 3 weeks ago before the Iran war. Cut cycle terminal rate now 3.28 with odds increasing that cut cycle is already over https://t.co/VYJRS9oWdI
Beyond Personalization: Curiosity Drives Cold Email Replies
Personalization won’t fix your cold emails; You’ve been told to personalize everything. Mention their company. Mention their LinkedIn post. Mention their industry news. And yet… Your emails still get ignored. Why? Because personalization alone doesn’t create curiosity. It doesn’t create urgency. And it definitely doesn’t create replies. In this webinar, I’ll...
Companies Crave Fractional Content Ops over Full‑time Hires
Was chatting with another content marketer leaning into fractional content operations, and I keep hearing there is *so much demand* for this type of work. Companies don't need a full-time hire or a high-cost agency. They need someone experienced enough to...
Halting Non‑Iranian Tankers in Gulf Sends Shockwave
yes, managing to stop all non-Iranian oil tanker traffic in the Persian Gulf is a tremendous impact.
Spread Your Brand Story Across Publishers for AI Visibility
Making a strong case for distribution of your company information / news / etc in a GEO world. This part makes me think a lot about the black box of training data and the long horizons of training data...
Relentless Innovation Drives Growth and Operational Excellence
Bom Kim sounds an awful lot like Bezos: “Relentless innovation fuels not only growth, but also continuous improvements in our processes and margins. We have always believed that customer experience and operational excellence can advance hand in hand.” $CPNG
AI Boosts Workload, Not Reduces It
WSJ: "One of the great hopes for AI—at least, among workers—is that it will ease workloads, freeing people up for more high-level, creative pursuits. So far, the opposite is happening, new data show...AI is increasing the speed, density and complexity...
Russia Mulls 10% Budget Cut Amid Falling Oil Revenues
"The Russian government is preparing a possible 10% cut to all 'non-sensitive' spending in this year's budget, sources told Reuters, but the final decision will hinge on the sustainability of the oil price rise triggered by the war in Iran. As...
Finance Leaders Evaluate only Three Vendors Before Demos
The magic number is 3. We asked 100 CFOs and VPs of Finance how many vendors they closely evaluate when buying software. 50% said exactly 3. Median: 3. Mean: 4.1. 53% evaluate 3 or fewer. This is a brutally small window. Think about what this...
Scale Your Service Business with No‑money‑down Acquisitions
work with me and scale your traditional service based business via no money down acquisitions: expand your multiple and step into building a portfolio: https://calendly.com/josh-joshli/m-a-private-advisory
AI-Driven Layoffs: CEOs Cutting 20‑40% Staff Now
I get at least one text a week from a CEO planning to cut staff. Not small companies. $20M, $200M, $400M businesses. Block just cut 40% of its workforce — 4,000 people. Gone. Harry Stebbings from 20VC is saying the same thing: at...
AI Assistant Vellum Answers Calls and Handles Tasks
🚨 I've been using an AI that literally picks up my phone calls for me. Not a chatbot. Not another browser tab. An actual personal assistant that lives on my computer and gets shit done. It's called Vellum. Here's what it did for me...
Avoid Email List Mistakes to Unlock 7‑Figure Growth
👇Comment NEWSLETTER and I’ll DM you this week’s newsletter…we’re talking email list mistakes that are quietly killing your sales, the mindset shift separating 6 from 7 figures, and a few things I’m trying NOT to buy 😅
Core PCE Outpaces CPI Due to Weighting Differences
We still need Feb PPI , but Feb core PCE looks much stronger than Feb core CPI. On Friday, Jan core PCE will also be stronger than Jan core CPI. This is not shelter. Instead, it reflects the differences in...
Practical UX Leadership: Influence Without Unlimited Resources
So I've been running workshops for Smashing Magazine for a while now, and each time I put one together I ask myself whether I'm actually teaching the right things or just covering the topics I find interesting. (Probably a bit...
Aramco Restores 70% Flow, Yet Critical 30% Still Blocked
Saudi Aramco resumed 70% of oil shipments via Red Sea pipeline. Markets celebrated. But 30% is still offline. And the Strait of Hormuz — the main artery — remains contested. 70% of normal isn't normal. https://t.co/8vfhBzo9cZ
CPI Meets Forecasts, Rate‑Cut Outlook Hits Low
Both US headline and core #CPI for February were both in-line with expectations and previous: 2.4% and 2.5% respectively. Nevertheless, expectations for FOMC rate cuts through this year are the lowest since May 2nd (-30bps). That won't make Trump happy... https://t.co/9kJhHgDilS
Blog Content Fuels $4M ARR Without Sales or Ads
Joel Griffith's first big customers didn't come from sales or ads. They came from blog posts. One user brought Browserless with them to their next company. Then the next one. At nearly $4M ARR, content still drives almost all their inbound. https://t.co/rqTYeCejSm
CPI Understates Inflation; Core Services Surge, Fed Faces More Pressure
More to come but things to keep in mind… CPI headline figures of 2.4% are artificially suppressed by the lapse in data collection during the six week government shutdown. Under the hood, there is a disturbing acceleration in core service sector...
Media VC Deals Plunge 70% While AI Soars
.@thewrap looks at M&A so far this year: media VC deals are falling – 70% year over year – compared to AI which is soaring. Here’s the story in charts, in partnership with @PitchBook : https://t.co/dQDSQqFM6m
Join Hedgeye Live: Data‑Driven Fed, Economy, Market Talk
I’m looking forward to being “Hedgeye Live" in May. It will be a candid, data-driven discussion between me and @KeithMcCullough on the Fed, the economy, and markets — Get your tickets:https://t.co/MHeVrqQao0 #federalreserve #powell #dimartinobooth #economy #hedgeye https://t.co/YcfP4M0qvV