Google Bought DeepMind for Under AI Pre‑seed Valuation
Still wild that Google acquired DeepMind for less than an AI Pre-Seed valuation in 2026
AI Bubble Stalls as Compute Limits Force Enterprise Pivot
Sydney Sweeney chimes in on the AI bubble in a recent interview: “We're hitting a wall scaling compute. Everyone's pivoting to high margin enterprise revenue. Sovereign's are defaulting on mega fund capital calls. Elon's doing an emergency, no-lockup retail dump pitching...
Law Firms Earn $69B, Outpacing Google’s R&D
Wild stat "America’s top 100 law firms made a combined $69 billion in profit in 2025, greater than Google’s 2025 R&D budget. Every cent was paid out to the firms’ partners as compensation."
Tech‑Heavy Startups Dominate Harmonic Q2 List with Minimal Overlap
Harmonic just dropped its Q2 '26 Hot 25 list, featuring the early stage companies seeing the most investor interest on @Harmonic_AI's platform. My biggest takeaways: Almost zero competition between these products. Every quarter, this list has multiple clusters of startups all sort...
Red Lobster's $1.2B AI Shrimp Basket Fantasy
I can’t wait to see this in the Red Lobster board deck justifying why they’re spending $1.2B to create AI-powered endless shrimp baskets
AI Autopiloted Term Sheet, Closing Deals in Seconds
Sent a founder a term sheet. $500k @ $10m post. She replied, and CC’d my assistant. “Too low. Claude, double the check size, 3x the valuation, and introduce me to Zuck and Jensen.” I laughed, as if that would work. I keep those intros...
LinkedIn Faces SOC2 Non‑compliance Shock Monday
LinkedIn gonna be crazy on Monday when they all find out they’re not SOC2 compliant
Fine‑tuning Wasted; RAG Outperforms for Real Value
From @scottastevenson on why fine tuning models was the biggest mistake in AI: "Founders learned investors were hungry for this narrative, and they all pitched them on it. And it was hyper legible, because it painted them like OpenAI. Since this was...
Hanover Park Raises $27M to Power $100T Infrastructure
Chris, Nick, and @hanoverpark have been on a tear the past 20 months. Have never seen a company build so much trust with customers so quickly. They just raised $27M to continue assembling the dream team to build the financial infrastructure...
VC Automates $10M AI Startup Investments via OpenClaw
My buddy just switched over his entire VC firm ($3B AUM) to run on OpenClaw Anytime someone submits a deck on their website, it checks their LinkedIn. If their employer is OpenAI or Anthropic, it automatically asks to invest $10m on...
General AI Can't Outpace Specialized Legal Templates
Pretty interesting argument on why ChatGPT and Claude won't replace all the vertical AI tools. In law specifically, it would actually slow you down. Lawyers have to read and understand every word in a document, and it's actually faster to work...
Find Investors
Everyone talks about 2 and 20 in VC. But what does it actually mean? 2 hours of podcasts per day 20 social media posts per day Find investors that enjoy the process.
UnitedHealth's Claims Processed by Single Employee Using DOS, Typewriter
Wow. United Health has just revealed that their claims department is run by one employee. He logs into MS Dos in the morning and reads through every claim, line-by-line. He then types each response manually on a type writer and faxes...
Free First-Year Corporate Tax Filing with Fondo
Staying on top of tax deadlines sucks. Cool new feature from Fondo making it easier for founders.
Bankers Claim $100M ARR Now Enough for IPO
"I'm hearing bankers say things like, '$100 million ARR, we could probably take that public.' I haven’t heard that in a while."
Nvidia Gains When Neolab Spinouts Thrive
Would very much be in Nvidia's best interest for as many of the Neolab spinouts to succeed as possible
Incumbents Must Pursue Big AI Acquisitions to Stay Competitive
New @ThePeelPod with @chetanp We talk Manus, the history + future of software, why incumbents should make big AI acquisitions, why investors are begging for AI companies to go public, and inside @Benchmark’s latest investing strategy. Thanks @Numeral and @FlexSuperApp for sponsoring...
Sequoia Fast‑tracked $75M Series B After Deep Customer Vetting
A look inside @getserval's Series B, the #1 company on @harmonic_ai's Hot 25 list last quarter
AI Fails without Real‑time Data Architecture
"AI makes real-time data table stakes. When an AI system is automating work flows, interacting directly with customers, and making decisions without a human in the loop, it just doesn't work if its running on stale data. It will give you...
Technical Founder‑Led Pre‑AI Software Firms Are Grossly Undervalued
Scaled pre-AI software companies led by technical founders that are still very engaged in the business are probably some of the most undervalued companies in the world right now
YC Backs 20% of $5B+ Startups Since 2012
New @ThePeelPod with @GarryTan YC has invested in 20% of all startups worth $5B+ started since 2012. We talked for 83 minutes on the past, present, and future of YC. Thanks @numeral and @FlexSuperApp for sponsoring this one Timestamps: 0:05 Moving from Winnipeg to...
Ebay Sale Sparked Creation of Twitch and Cruise
From tomorrow's @ThePeelPod with @garrytan: A startup in the very first YC batch sold itself on Ebay. This got the attention of Kyle Vogt, who ended up joining them to start their next company, Twitch. Kyle then went on to then...
Content Drives Hiring: 10+ Hires From One Episode
Talked to a @BananaCap_ portfolio company this morning who mentioned they hired 10+ people from their @ThePeelPod episode. Insane how much value you can add for founders when you get really dialed in on content.
LPs Vet Stanford SPV Leader on Massive Anthropic Deal
OH in Palo Alto: LPs are REFCHECKING a Stanford SPV leader who is MOGGING Tier 1’s and FEEMAXXING at 3/30 on 9-figure DIRECT Anthropic allocations
Curated Tech Stack Powers Modern Venture Firms
Optimal venture firm tech stack: -Fund Admin: @hanoverpark -Bank/Cards: @FlexSuperApp -CRM: @NotionHQ -Sales tax for port co’s: @numeral -Ski passes: @VailResorts -Travel: @NetJets / @FourSeasons -Everything else: @claudeai
Investing in Teams to Tackle Food & Nutrition Crisis
Food and nutrition is one of humanities biggest problems right now IMO Would love to invest in more teams working on solving this
Airwallex Hits $1B Run Rate, Finally Gets Noticed
Airwallex just crossed a $1B rev run rate and feels like no one talked about them until late last year. Crazy.
VCs Push Startups to Scale Faster with AI
your VC board member who tells you to “grow faster” and asks “do we have an AI strategy?” https://t.co/zZEvCAtTTO
Investors Fund SPV to Lock in Anduril Equity
how it feels raising an SPV at 5 and 20 to buy forward contracts on Anduril employee equity https://t.co/XjfQa1Z54u
Market Size Irrelevant; Success Can Exceed Initial TAM
One of my biggest takeaways from talking to @dugsong and @jonoberheide: Market size doesn't matter. They ultimately sold Duo to Cisco for $2.35B, which was bigger than the initial TAM when they started the company.
Standard Capital Helps Without Sitting on Your Board
"@Standard_Cap's whole model is that they don't need to be on your board to be helpful"
Massive Pre‑Product Funding Could Bring AI To
Now that you can raise a 9-figure round pre-product, there's a non-zero chance we see a Super Bowl ad for pre-revenue AI company this year.
Anthropic Chosen by 75% of New Startups
Insane data from @Mercury. Anthropic has quickly become the first model of choice for 75% of newly formed startups.
Five Centuries of Venture Capital: A Visual Evolution
Cool graphic on how the venture industry has evolved over the past 500 years. h/t @pavelprata https://t.co/2CL76j0nvR
Keep Re‑incorporating Daily Until Your Funding Closes
if you don't close your round in the first day just re-incorporate every day until you close
VCs Can't Fund Ex‑OpenAI Founders Indefinitely
“VCs can’t just keep giving OpenAI employees billions of dollars to start a new company forever” VCs: https://t.co/lVyo5wnDoI
AI Revolutionizes Enterprise Sales and Organizational Structure
New @ThePeelPod with @JacquelineSYC19 How AI is changing data, getting enterprise customers from cold emails during YC, building an AI BDR in-house, why most functions at @artie_labs report to the CTO (not CEO), and what it's like raising a Series...
Zoom Jumps 10% as Anthropic Stake Finally Priced
Zoom is up 10% today, or about what its Anthropic position would be worth (I'd guess closer to 50x than 85x). It's trading at a $28B market cap as of right now, and its Anthropic position is probably worth ~$2-3B. Insane this...
A16z Pivots to Crypto, Seed, Secondaries, Abandons Series C/D
Really interesting chart from a16z's latest State of Markets report: - a16z deployed $1.5B into crypto tokens in 2025. This looks to be majority of their increase in capital deployed between 2024 and 2025. - Also looks like a big jump in...
AI's Rapid Progress Outpaces Bubble Concerns, Driving Profits
"There’s pockets of bubble-ish dynamics. But the technology is improving so fast, there’s so much more room to improve, and companies accelerating in AI are printing money."
Deep Dive: AI Trends and Investment Strategies with Nathan Benaich
Fun convo going deep on all things AI and how to invest in it with the 🐐 @nathanbenaich
Turn
if Indiana can go from losingest team in NCAA history to undefeated and CFP champion in two years, you can get to 3x DPI on the late stage SaaS portfolio you invested at 97x ARR in 2021
Series B Startup Naming Contest Tests VC Knowledge
VC autism contest: Who can name the most startups that have raised a Series B. If you get a single one wrong, you’re eliminated at that number. Whoever gets the highest wins.
A16z's Fundraise Could Hand $1M to Every American
With its latest fundraise, a16z could give $1 million to every American and still have $10 billion left over.
AI Firms Dominate Q4 Secondary Market; SpaceX Returns to Top
The 30 most in-demand startup secondary shares in Q4 '25 (per Setter Capital) Big takeaways: - SpaceX is back at #1. It spent 2.5 years on top before Anthropic briefly surpassed it in Q3. - Little change at very top of the list...
Kevin Hartz: Backing Teens, AI Bubble, PayPal Wisdom
New pod with @kevinhartz - why he backs so many teen founders - lessons from the PayPal Mafia - AI is the mother of all bubbles yet still underhyped - how Palantir, Xoom, and Eventbrite evolved from PayPal - sizing a hidden TAM - having kids...