Seeking Series A+ Leaders' Feedback on Cursor 2.0
A portfolio co is building Cursor 2.0. If any Series A+ founders or eng leaders are open to sharing early feedback as a favor for me, DM me. :)
Europe’s Booming Entrepreneurs Signal Strong Investment Opportunities
If you are not bullish on Europe right now I can categorically tell you, you have s*** dealflow and need to improve. Never been more great entrepreneurs building mega European businesses.
Project Europe Poised to Lead EU Entrepreneurship
Project Europe has been live for 10 months. 12 Project Europe companies. 4 have raised significant up rounds from Tier 1s. 1 has been acquired by category leader. Never been more confident that Project Europe will be the dominant entry...
Choose Speed over a Higher Multiple for Faster Exit
Every day a deal stays in due diligence is another day for "market events," "cold feet," or "competitor moves" to blow it up. For a fast-growing marketing agency recently listed on @acquiredotcom, the goal was a premium 3.8x EBITDA multiple. We hit...
Build Trust with Prospects to Boost Acquisition Odds
Getting to know potential acquirers in your space does increase the odds they acquire you — if you do it for the right way. Why? Because it builds trust. And a big part of M&A is trust. Will the team we just...
History Guides Real Insight Into AI Investing
I sat down with @mjmauboussin to connect his unconventional career to Runnin’ Down a Dream—then used history, not hype, to frame the current AI investment world. Pre-order the book to unlock the full video here: https://t.co/HlNDfpEy66 #runnindownadream https://t.co/AhjQL3BGAO
Variant Bio Launches $200M‑plus Pharma Collaborations with New Platform
1/ Big news today from Lux family co Variant Bio 🧬📈@VariantBio Announced its new Inference platform is now available to research partners + has collaborations with several pharmaceutical companies in deals totaling more than $200 million including Boehringer + Novo...
Roofle Acquired by SalesRabbit: A New Growth Chapter
Congrats to Travis Harvego , Joe Hoffman , and the ROOFLE team for their recent acquisition by SalesRabbit . Best of luck as you kick off the next stage in your journey. Glad we could help. Check out the press...
Stop Parenting Your Startup; Treat It as an Organization
Your business is not your baby, child, or another human you are in a relationship with. It is an organization. That distinction matters more than founders want to admit. Organizations exist to convert decisions into outcomes at scale. They rely on clear...
Real‑World M&A Lessons: Offer Private, Objective Guidance
I’ve been around long enough to see how most M&A paths actually unfold. Some work exactly as hoped. Others resolve quietly. A few fall apart late for reasons that never make it into a postmortem. I’ve been on the acquiring side, the...
Effective Strategy Demands Painful Trade‑offs and Clear Ownership
strategy should hurt. if you aren't making painful trade-offs, you haven't prioritized. • one goal, one owner • shared ownership = no ownership molly graham on @lennysan: https://t.co/RW7eAWk6kI
Predictable Revenue Drives Higher SaaS Valuations
Valuations of software companies are highly dependent on the predictability of revenue. In other words, different classes of revenue are valued differently depending on their predictability. The more predictable, the better. To help founders distinguish between the different classes of...
Inflated ARR Misleads Investors and Cash Flow
An issue I’m seeing pop up with new AI companies - they pay reps on “ARR” that’s really a series of three month pilot deals. The rep sells something for $3K and they call it $12K in ARR. Oh, and...
Prepare Your Startup for Exit, Not Luck
Not every startup is ready to sell the first time it hits the market. In 2022, a founder listed a promising startup on @acquiredotcom that went nowhere. No real buyer interest. No momentum. The issue wasn’t demand. It was structure. So they...
Show AI Benefits and Address Fears to Win Race
A good reminder that outside of the tech bubble, we must expand our efforts to (1) show tangible AI superpowers to many people, and (2) address the concerns and fears they have about AI growth, both environmentally and economically. Failing...
AI Accelerates Design: 3‑D Renders in 30 Seconds
💥 Now that we’ve packed up the holidays and turned the corner into 2026, it’s a good time to take stock of the spaces we live in. This The New York Times piece highlights how Havenly Brands (Havenly, Interior Define,...
Engage Multiple Buyers to Maximize Synergies and Outcomes
Different buyers value companies differently. Only by talking to a broad spectrum of buyers will you ensure that you: * Uncover all potential synergies * Make the process hyper-competitive * Unlock the best outcome #founders #pathtoexit
LLMs Poised to Become Tomorrow’s Hidden Infrastructure Layer
Will today's leading foundational LLMs be the DEC,Cray, Wang, Radio Shack, Sun, Data General, Compaq, etc of tomorrow ? GenAI LLMs want to be the operating systems of today and tomorrow. It's possible they will be the CP/M, DOS,...
70+ and Thriving: Backing Innovators, Learning Fast
At 70+ I feel like I'm thirty backing exciting innovators/innovations making the impossible possible and from improbable ideas to world-changing socially impactful companies. Never had such a fast learning rate in my life or felt I could have so much impact, which is exciting. https://t.co/3BTsDx4Gr7
AI Erodes Speed Advantage, Judgment Now Matters Most
AI removed the natural friction that used to separate thinking from output. Writing, design, analysis, code, and planning now move fast enough that effort is no longer a credible signal. When anyone can produce something quickly, speed stops being impressive. What...
Envisioning 2050: Past Predictions Shape Our Future
Here are my predictions for 2050 (the world we can create) two years ago at TED and at our CEO conference:
Niche Micro‑SaaS: $120K Revenue, $106K Profit
Love when founders go ALL IN on a niche problem. High-margin SEO micro-SaaS dropped on @acquiredotcom. Proven demand with low operating costs and recurring revenue: > $120K TTM revenue > $106K TTM profit > $185K asking price Full listing: https://t.co/wEmZSNHIYp https://t.co/H2P0UFshLo
Top Operators Guard Conviction Like Capital Preserves Cash
The best operators conserve conviction the way capital allocators conserve cash.
Winning Obsession: Why Founders Must Sacrifice Work-Life Balance
I have interviewed 1,000 of the best founders over the last 10 years. The top three: 1. Nik Storonsky (Revolut) 2. @awxjack (Airwallex) 3. @alanchanguk (Fuse Energy) All three share one trait. Unwavering obsession to win. We BS so many founders today because people hate what...
Strong Fundamentals, Not Subscription Model, Drive SaaS Sales
One of the biggest myths in SaaS is that if a business isn’t pure subscription, it’s not sellable. That’s wrong. A recent $4.5M cloud computing acquisition on @acquiredotcom proved it. This company didn’t have textbook recurring revenue, but it did have...
When Execution Is Cheap, Judgment Becomes the Bottleneck
Execution is no longer the constraint. As building gets cheaper, judgment becomes the scarce resource. Models can generate options endlessly. What they don’t accumulate is lived consequence. They don’t carry the memory of failed bets, abandoned paths, or tradeoffs that only made...
Every App Becomes a Self‑Coding, Shareable Platform
prior gen software products often added scripting languages/macros so that people can extend functionality (Excel being the most famous, but also modding in games, etc) what if every app becomes a vibe coding app? That is, in any app that you use...
AI & Space IPOs Set to Shatter Fee Benchmarks
Wow, here's an estimate of what investment banks made from IPO fees in 2025 2026 will blow these (already large) numbers away if OpenAI, SpaceX, and Anthropic hit the public markets (Someone tell the manager at Porsche of Greenwich to...
Embrace Risk: The Key to Bigger Opportunities
More risk is something most people are afraid of, and it's where the larger opportunity lies
Beta Tool Accelerates Startup Fundraising – Seeking Founder Feedback
Building a tool to help startups fundraise faster. If you're a founder planning to raise soon, DM me. Would love your feedback on the early beta. :) (I may delete this if I receive too many DMs)
VC Returns Collapse: Only 7% of Deals Hit 3x
Yes, M&A is back. More deals are getting done. But per @SiliconVlyBank, VCs make 3x or more their money on just 7% of them That’s way, way down from 22% in 2021, and even 15% in 2019 https://t.co/5oeZOGTpNr
Ask VCs Their Investment Odds to Save Time
It's totally OK to ask a VC at the end of a pitch meeting, "Based on what you know now, what are the odds you'd invest?" In fact, it can save a lot of time
Clean P&L: Your Ticket to Premium M&A Exit
Founders often focus on the product and the growth, but in the world of M&A, a premium exit starts with your books. For sophisticated buyers, clean financials are virtually mandatory. If a founder can't produce a clean P&L on demand, it...
Wealth Isn’t Exclusive to Entrepreneurs—Founders Just Have More Leverage
Saying that only entrepreneurs generate wealth is as mistaken as saying that only workers do. In fact founders, managers, employees, and individual craftsmen can all generate wealth. Founders do have the most leverage though.
Billionaire Tax Would Push Founders Out Early
In the future, should the UESF-UHW Billionaire Tax pass, startup founders like these would leave well before the valuation reaches $3B. (If founders have special founder class voting shares, that number is much lower — if you read the fine...
Hospitality SaaS Drives 20% Revenue Boost for Hotels
Vertical SaaS is crushing it! Live on @acquiredotcom: Hospitality SaaS helping hotels grow revenue by 20%+ through dynamic pricing and channel optimization. > $650K ARR > $675K TTM revenue > 250+ hotels using it Full listing: https://t.co/X1PgOV91Xs https://t.co/sz6jjMyyPV
US Investors: Back Iran’s Emerging Tech Talent
If YOU are American🇺🇸 (need not be Iranian or Persian) investor, family office, asset manager and interested in funding technologists, engineers, entrepreneurs when Iran is free and talented is and opportunity is unleashed…. Leave a comment below 👇
Even Experts Misjudge Tech Adoption Speed
Not all of my predictions have been right. In late 2000’s, I believed cellulosic biofuels could replace gasoline and oil at scale. That didn’t happen. I underestimated electric vehicles, assuming a critical mass of charging stations was hard. I underestimated how...
What One Data Point Could Reveal Startup Realities?
Hey Peter Walker , if there was one piece of elusive data you could get your hands on to help you tell the story of startups RN, what would it be?
Delay Sale, Build Predictable SaaS for Higher Valuation
When Samuel Abebe built @SpeakerSplit, it was just a side project to solve his own audio editing headaches. He had early offers to sell, but he did a counterintuitive thing: He said no. By waiting, he transformed a "utility tool" into...
Join Quanta: Well‑Funded Series A Startup Opportunity
New Job 2026 no, not for me, for *you* - just received the latest update on Quanta from Helen Hastings and it's a great time to join a well-funded Series A startup. https://lnkd.in/gBg2JV7z
Tech Predictions Nearing Reality: Progress Accelerates Yearly
For years I’ve shared predictions about how technology would reshape our world. We’re still early in that journey, but we’re getting closer every year. Here’s a look back at some of my predictions and the recent progress moving toward them:
Rethinking 2026 Input/Output: Glasses, Smart Pens, BCI
Time to reinvent input/output in 2026 beyond the phone: (1) eye glasses that see and hear everything you see and hear? Meta may have done the right thing for the wrong (AR) reason (2) better pens that digitize the...
Scale AI by Embedding Feedback Loops, Not Flashy Demos
In 2025, a lot of teams treated AI like a feature multiplier. Bolt it on, ship a demo, call it progress. The hard work of designing systems that learn, degrade gracefully, and hold up under real usage was quietly discounted....
Banks Ditch Legacy Contracts for AI‑Native Systems
It's 2026. The best financial institutions are quietly doing something that would’ve been unthinkable 5 years ago. They’re letting 20–30 year legacy contracts expire — and replacing them with AI-native systems of record. This time is different. Really. Why? *...
Successful Startups Act, Others Stay Stuck in Denial
Few startups have a smooth ascent. Many if not most have some setbacks initially. The good ones react by focusing on specific steps they can take. The bad ones are vaguely hopeful, or depressed, or in denial — and change...
Setbacks Shape Founders by Their Meaning, Not Reality
Most first-time founders believe the hardest part is the situation they’re in. A missed deadline. An investor who passed. A launch that didn’t move numbers. A hire that didn’t work out. In the early days, progress gets interrupted in small, unglamorous ways...
Jared Friedman: The Hacker‑Builder Rock of YC
YC Managing Partner Jared Friedman is a rock. He's a hacker, builder, and true founder. It's one of my favorite things about returning to YC the last 3 years, getting to work with him.
SpaceX IPO Could Top $1 Trillion, Biggest Ever
"What happens once SpaceX goes public at $1T+? It will be likely the biggest IPO of all time." with @rodriscoll @HarryStebbings + me https://t.co/jJPfjo7ShA
Join Batter Up X H‑On Dream: Korean Startups Pitch Jan 8
SF investors, join us at Batter Up x H-On Dream SF on January 8th! We're bringing Korean founders onstage to pitch their startups, get feedback from a panel of investors, and eat some za🍕. RSVP here: https://t.co/FH4yBleMSg https://t.co/SVGvNz6HXh