POPULARITY
Categories
In this episode, Chris sits down with Ben Nowack, co-founder and CEO of Reflect Orbital, one of the first companies building satellites that redirect sunlight from orbit to specific spots on Earth - with the goal of delivering sunlight on demand, 24/7. Why would you want sunlight 24/7? Agriculture and farming, construction projects, rescue missions, military operations, powering solar panels closer to 100% of the time instead of ~30%, etc. Ben started Reflect in 2021. He spent the first year in a garage, $60k in credit card debt, before a $350k raise came in. Reflect has now raised more than $35 million - Sequoia led the seed (its first space investment since SpaceX), Lux Capital led the $20M Series A - and launches its first satellite later this year. They discuss: - A speech Gwynne Shotwell gave during his tenure at SpaceX that he will never forget - What he learned while working at SpaceX that he implements at Reflect - The story of building the actual company and why building hardware is hard - How they think about vertical integration - The trillion $ business case for redirecting sunlight - How he recruits technical talent - what works and what doesn't Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (1:07) "Rockets Are Cool, But They're Not the Big Money Makers" (7:00) Lessons from SpaceX: What Ben Took (and Left Behind) (16:35) The Origin: From High School Fusion Reactors to Reflect Orbital (25:10) The Fossil Fuel Problem and Why It's So Hard to Beat (28:37) "By 3 AM You Have a Minimum Viable Financial Model" (35:44) The Breakthrough: Putting Mirrors in Space (41:00) Building the First Satellite (51:03) First Satellite and Seven-Figure Demand Nobody Expected (57:00) The Constellation Plan: 18 Satellites, Global Coverage (1:10:00) What It's Like to Order Sunlight (1:22:00) Why Fashion Designers Build Better Spacecraft Than JWST Engineers (1:25:36) The 10-Year Vision: Starship, Scale, and Powering the Earth Find our sponsors: Collateral Partners - https://collateral.com/fort Relay Human Cloud - https://www.relayhumancloud.com/powers/ Download FastJets: iOs: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fastjets/id6756160345 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flyjetting.app Chris on Social Media: X: https://x.com/fortworthchris Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepowerspodcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ Visit our website: https://www.powerspod.com/ Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Matan Grinberg is the Founder and CEO @ Factory, an AI research lab, bringing autonomy to software engineering. Matan has raised over $220M for the company from the likes of Sequoia, Khosla, NEA, Evantic and 20VC. Last round valued the company at a whopping $1.5BN. AGENDA: 00:00 – Why AI Means Everyone Will Become a Builder 04:55 – Will AI Finally Break the 200-Year GDP Growth Ceiling? 06:45 – The Rise of the 100x Engineer & Load-Bearing Talent 08:00 – The New Executive Job: Allocating Tokens Like Capital 10:35 – Kirkland's $500M AI Bet: Brilliant or Delusional? 12:45 – The AI Value War: Models vs Applications vs Infrastructure 18:45 – Token Maxing, AI Hangovers & The Coming ROI Reckoning 22:00 – Why AI Spend Could Soon Exceed Developer Salaries 24:00 – Open Source Can Already Replace 80–90% of Frontier Model Work 28:00 – What Makes a Great Engineer in the Age of Agents? 35:00 – Jobs That Will Disappear First Because of AI 40:00 – Why Matan Isn't Worried About AI Taking Jobs Long-Term 46:00 – From String Theory to Startup Founder: The Sequoia Origin Story 52:00 – The Meeting That Led to Sequoia's First Check 58:00 – Why America's Lack of Frontier Open Models Is Embarrassing 1:08:00 – What Matan Looks for in Every New Employee 1:12:00 – Why Elite Companies Will Treat Employees Like NBA Athletes 1:16:00 – The Most Important Prediction Matan Has Changed His Mind On
SpaceX priced the biggest IPO ever at $135/share, raising $75B and debuting at $1.77T. ShinyHunters exploited an unpatched Oracle PeopleSoft flaw hitting 100+ organizations, Mistral seeks €3B at €20B, MrBeast hit 500M subscribers, and SBF lost his appeal. SpaceX raises $75B in the biggest-ever IPO, pricing 555.6M shares at $135 each, giving it a market value of $1.77T (Bloomberg) Founders Fund's ~3% SpaceX stake is worth $50B+, Sequoia's ~1.5% is worth $20B+, and a16z will see its biggest return ever at $10B+ (Bloomberg) Some investors question SpaceX's valuation, citing its $4.3B loss on $4.7B in revenue in Q1, as well as concerns over space data centers (NYT) Oracle warns customers of a critical PeopleSoft flaw after ShinyHunters claimed breaches of 100+ organizations using PeopleSoft; Oracle has not issued a patch (TechCrunch) Sources: French startup Mistral AI is in talks to raise ~€3B at a ~€20B valuation; it was last valued at €11.7B during a funding round in September 2025 (Bloomberg) MrBeast hits 500M subscribers on YouTube, a record for the platform (The Wrap) Sam Bankman-Fried loses his bid to overturn his fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence over the collapse of FTX (Reuters) Longreads As companies are hit by rising AI costs, they are increasingly using tools that tap cheaper models, including some from China, putting price pressure on OpenAI and Anthropic (WSJ) Sixteen economists weigh in on what AI will mean for the US economy, workers, and workplaces; only two expect AI to actually create more jobs (WSJ) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Subscribe to This Week in Hospitality wherever you get you podcasts: Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5oPExA0txHMjEI5Ye13IUy Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-hospitality/id1849637233 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinHospitality Two of the biggest casino operators in the world became takeover targets in the same week — and the squad has thoughts. Barry Diller's People Inc. just offered $18 billion to take MGM Resorts private, days after Fertitta agreed to buy Caesars. MGM's own CFO didn't argue the company was fairly valued — he argued investors aren't doing the work. Ben, Scott, and Edwin debate whether public markets are simply too lazy to underwrite experience-driven hospitality, and what the next-generation casino actually looks like. Then: the deal that almost rewrote the industry. On a recent podcast, Airbnb's former Chief Strategy Officer Chip Conley revealed that Marriott and Airbnb spent six months negotiating a major partnership in 2016 — including talk of earning and burning Bonvoy points on Airbnb stays — before Marriott's owners killed it. Was it the most expensive "no" in hospitality history? Plus: Zach got access to Odesia, the AI travel search platform from Sonder's co-founder that just landed $6M from Sequoia — and it's the best AI trip-planning experience he's seen, full stop. And a new survey of 2,000 travelers reveals what premium guests will actually pay more for: quiet rooms, verified sustainability, and tech that connects rather than dazzles. Spoiler — it's a home-field advantage for independents. Spice of the Week covers a sandwich shop that turned away revenue over a tiny dog, why full hotels fool owners into thinking their marketing works, the OTA-fee budget shell game, and Zach's big announcement: Journey's new strategic partnership with Cloudbeds. This Week in Hospitality is presented to you by Journey. Journey is a loyalty platform built specifically for independent boutique hotels and high-touch hospitality brands. Our mission is to give operators the same powerful rewards engine, data intelligence, and guest insights that major chains rely on — without asking them to give up the individuality, soul, or story that makes their property extraordinary. If you're an owner or operator of an extraordinary, independently owned and operated hotel or residence — and you want to see whether your property is a fit for the Journey Alliance — you can learn more and apply at https://www.journey.com/alliance Key Topics & Timestamps 00:00 — Intro 05:08 — Story #1: MGM's Take-Private Bid and the Value of Live Experience 16:31 — Story #2: Marriott and Airbnb's Partnership That Never Happened 33:43 — Story #3: Travelers Will Pay More for Quiet, Calm, and Credibility 44:54 — Spice of the Week Your Hosts: Zach Busekrus — Journey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachbusekrus/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthestays/ Scott Eddy — Global Travel & Hospitality Expert @MrScottEddy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrscotteddy/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrscotteddy/ Ben Wolff — Founder of Onera & Oasi LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-wolff/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iambenwolff/ Edwin Kramer — Luxury Hotelier Consultant & Former GM LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwinckramer/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edwinkramer/
As Halle Stanford drove through Topanga Canyon in Southern California, with Dolly Parton blasting from the car speakers, she was struck by a moment of inspiration. “I had this vision of a little hedgehog on the side of the road in her little pink hiking boots, with her guitar in her bag, out to find the wows of the world,” says Stanford, an independent television producer. A few days later, she came across research from UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center showing that awe — the emotion we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that we don't understand — inspires us to care for the planet and one another. “And I was like, ‘Bingo, that's it.'”That connection became the basis for Wowsabout, a new Jim Henson Company puppet preschool special on PBS designed to bring awe to young audiences. Created by Stanford and puppeteer Dorien Davies, the 30-minute special maps the journeys of Roxy, a free-spirited hedgehog, and Ronald, a fastidious city pig, as they explore Sequoia National Park. Together, they experience moments of awe, like when standing beneath towering Sequoias and watching migrating California tortoiseshell butterflies. And they meet others along the way, including Pekan, a puppet representing the endangered southern Sierra Nevada fisher who guides them to see historic pictographs carved into the park's rock formations. Awe isn't a luxury emotion, but an evolutionary necessity, says Dacher Keltner, a Berkeley psychology professor and the founding director of the Greater Good Science Center. “It makes kids kinder, it makes kids more creative. … Awe really helps kids stay curious, and be in love with big ideas.”Keltner has studied the science of awe for more than a decade, and in 2023 published the book Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. He served as a science consultant and co-executive producer for Wowsabout. In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Stanford and Davies join Keltner and others from the Greater Good Science Center — education director Vicki Zakrzewski and parenting program director Maryam Abdullah — in a talk moderated by Sarah Bracken, education outreach and school partnerships manager at the center. The group discusses the logistical hurdles of translating wonder into film and why cultivating everyday curiosity has become an essential antidote to modern social disconnection. The conversation took place on May 13 and was hosted by the Greater Good Science Center. Watch a video of the panel discussion. (The screening of Wowsabout was removed from the recording for copyright reasons.) Audiences can watch the full Wowsabout special for free on PBS Kids.Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts/berkeley-talks).Music by by HoliznaCC0.Photo courtesy of The Jim Henson Company. It's a screenshot from Wowsabout that shows Ronald, the pig puppet, sitting on a mossy log in a forest campsite, smiling happily while holding a park booklet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This Week In Startups is made possible by:NetSuite - Netsuite.com/TWiSTDeel - Deel.com/TWiSTSquarespace - Squarespace.com/TWiSTTwo days before SpaceX launches the largest IPO in history at a flat $135/share, our VC roundtable drops a scorcher: The top 1% of seed deals might actually be underpriced. Plus: the "Sequoia scam" dual-tranche controversy, tokens-for-equity deals, and whether Claude Fable 5 is a true step function.Tomasz Tunguz (Theory Ventures), Michael Downing (Castalia Capital), and Paige Doherty (Behind Genius Ventures) join Alex to go deep on Seed investing, startup economics, AI spend, and the impact of smarter AI on the founder journey.Guest Links:Tomasz Tunguz: https://x.com/ttunguzTheory Ventures: https://theoryvc.com/Michael Downing: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldowning/Castalia Capital: https://castalia.capital/Paige Doherty: https://x.com/paigefinnnBehind Genius Ventures: https://www.behindgeniusventures.comShow Links:Anthropic's IPO announcement: https://www.anthropic.com/news/confidential-draft-s1-secOpenAI's IPO announcement: https://openai.com/index/openai-submits-confidential-s-1/Bending Spoons F-1 filing: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2004711/000110465926071170/tm2613674-7_f1.htmSpaceX IPO filing: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1181412/000162828026040364/spaceexplorationtechnologib.htmBrendan Foody's post on Sequoia: https://x.com/BrendanFoody/status/2063470286515683759Claude Fable 5: https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-fable-5-mythos-5OpenRouter data on Chinese models: https://openrouter.ai/rankings?view=daySaronic: https://www.saronic.com/MotherDuck: https://motherduck.com/Nox Metals: https://noxmetals.co/Timestamps:0:00 Tomasz Tunguz, Michael Downing & Paige Doherty join2:07 The SpaceX IPO and the IPO window4:22 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations — interviews, meetings, calls — you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!6:30 The new bar: 10x growth (not 3x) to raise a great Series A8:46 Net-new AI budgets9:46 Squarespace: Turn your idea into a beautiful website! Go to https://www.squarespace.com/twist for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.11:09 How some founders are outgrowing venture capital11:44 The power pendulum swings back to founders12:46 SpaceX vs. OpenAI vs. Anthropic: Which IPO is most enticing?19:53 Deel - Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more.26:07 Tokens-for-equity, GPU-hours-for-equity & the financialization of compute28:35 Founders airing VC dirty laundry (napping VCs included)29:56 Netsuite - The business landscape is very chaotic right now. That's why you need NetSuite, by Oracle. Get the free business guide Demystifying AI at https://Netsuite.com/TWiST36:38 Claude Fable 5 first impressions: pricing, benchmarks & orchestration45:42 Where value accrues: application layer vs. models vs. private data1:00:06 Nationalization of AI labs: Bernie Sanders, Sam Altman & Trump agree?!1:01:25 Portfolio spotlights: Saronic, MotherDuck, and Nox MetalsSubscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comSubscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpFollow Lon:X: https://x.com/lonsFollow Alex:X: https://x.com/alexLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelmFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisGreat TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarlandCheck out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis
We discuss Apple's WWDC 2026 announcements. Some of them weren't even about AI. Dan rounded up a lot of the smaller features that Apple only showed briefly onscreen.If you want to help out the show and get some great bonus content, consider becoming a Rebound Prime member! Just go to prime.reboundcast.com to check it out!Were you aware that you could buy things from us?! That's right! Shirts, iPhone cases, mugs, hats and one other type of thing are all available from our Rebound Store!
It is Ashe's golden age birthday (47, an even MAGA number) and the ladies open with the most on brand baroque dinosaur and clown birthday card from Archangel Michael, leaf photo challenge submissions that look professionally lit, and a coffee photo challenge fail that Ashe is fully embracing. Ashe then digs into the history of her own birthday: James Madison introducing the Bill of Rights in 1789 (the part she would never let them change), George Orwell's 1984 published in 1949 with a passage about lack of understanding keeping people sane, and the 1967 attack on the USS Liberty. Christy takes the professor chair for mad as a hatter, which turns out to come from actual mercury poisoning in seventeenth century French hat makers and not Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Ashe walks through CannCon's research on Smartmatic and how its Venezuelan code lives on inside Dominion and Sequoia, the LA Spencer Pratt election circus, and Trump walking off Kristen Welker's barn set after she demanded evidence the media already knows exists. Cristina from Rise Attire joins to debut The Crystal Veil, her first short film and the start of Dauntless Tales, a stylized AI fantasy series in the spirit of Dark Crystal and Legend, with a Guy Fawkes knight, an allegory for a different psyop in every episode, and a reminder that our kids need to see good guys win.
What if the broker channel — often written off as too traditional, too slow, too analogue — is actually where AI's impact on insurance will be felt most?Alex sits down with Martin F., co-founder of Foliume, to explore exactly that question in this week's episode.Founded in 2022, Foliume is on a mission to reinvent insurance distribution by putting AI at the centre of how brokers and agencies work — reducing the administrative burden that consumes their days and giving them back time to do what they do best: build relationships, understand risk, and serve customers.Martin breaks down Foliume's dual AI approach — assisted tools that keep brokers in control, and autonomous systems capable of handling customer interactions end-to-end across channels like WhatsApp — and explains why getting that balance right is everything.The conversation covers:
NIO is playing a different game — and Motley Fool just called it out. While competitors chase export volume and watch margins collapse, NIO focuses on winning the domestic market with brand, tech, and community.William Li's warning that China's automotive golden era is over actually strengthens NIO's positioning in a mature, saturated market. Plus: Uber burned through its full 2026 AI budget by April, one company hit a $500 million Claude bill, enterprise AI costs are exploding, and founders are finally naming names on VC horror stories (including Sequoia passing on today's $87B Cloudflare). May jobs report (+172k) adds macro pressure for the new Fed chair.Real talk from Obi: NIO's strategy looks increasingly smart, the AI spending narrative is getting stress-tested, and capital allocation biases have real consequences.Dial Tone: A Modern Salesman's Story — my debut novel. Pre-order now on Amazon (E-book ready, hard copy June 12th).
This week on our Vino Lingo segment we feature Jesse Fox, Winemaker, Sequoia Grove, Napa Valley, defining the term “Complexity”. Learn more by visiting sequoiagrove.com.
A background in the culinary world is a huge plus for a winemaker, and Jesse Fox has just that. Jesse the Winemaker at Sequoia Grove Winery in Napa Valley and his time as a chef has certainly paid off. I caught up with Jesse when he visited Milwaukee just a few weeks ago while on [...]
Celebrate summer in California's Sequoia Country, where outdoor adventures, fresh local produce, community festivals, and iconic public lands come together in the heart of Tulare County. In this episode, learn about seasonal activities in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, family-friendly parks and trails, picnic destinations, and ways to enjoy the region responsibly through Leave No Trace principles and wildlife safety practices. The conversation also highlights Tulare County's agricultural bounty, from farmers markets and fruit stands to locally grown treats and summertime flavors. Along the way, discover community events, art, and cultural experiences in Visalia, Exeter, and beyond, along with practical travel tips for visiting Crystal Cave, navigating park shuttles, and making the most of summer in California's Sequoia Country. FEATURED GUESTS FROM THE SEQUOIA TOURISM COUNCIL: - Suzanne Bianco – Visit Visalia: https://www.visitvisalia.com/ - Holly Streit – Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks: https://nps.gov/seki/index.htm - Shannon Schroth– Exeter Chamber of Commerce: https://www.exeterchamber.com/ PLAN YOUR VISIT: https://www.discoverthesequoias.com/
Mark Pincus is the creator behind Farmville and Words with Friends. He built Zynga into one of the biggest gaming companies in the world and helped shape the early era of social products on the internet. In this conversation, he breaks down how great founders spot winning ideas early, why most startups build the wrong thing, and how products become part of people's daily lives. He shares lessons from building Zynga, missing the opportunity behind social networking before Facebook took off, navigating platform risk during Zynga's explosive growth, and rebuilding his confidence after major failures. You'll learn how to test ideas faster, what separates products people try from products people love, how to avoid “death by compromise” as a founder, and why the best builders stay obsessed with what users actually want. + Members get the longer, extended version of this conversation, with additional content not included in the public release. Join Now. + +Pre-order Life at the Speed of Play: Launch Products People Love! ------ Timestamps: (00:00) The Principles of Great Products (01:34) How to Test if Your Idea Has "Heat" (04:02) Falling Out with His Father (06:14) Early Career Fails (09:27) The Presentation that Kicked him out of Bain (12:04) The Book of Life System for Making Strategic Decisions (17:56) Why Your Instincts are Good and Your Ideas are Bad (22:29) Copying is the Key to Great Product Design (23:22) System for Building Great Products (24:05) How to Use "Proven Better New" to Build Ideas (27:39) Why Deconstruction Leads to Better Products (29:33) All Founders Go Through This (35:14) How Zynga Changed Social Gaming (37:25) Pitching Zynga to Steve Jobs (40:36) The Fatal Mistake Founders Make (41:24) The Fight Between Peter Thiel and Sequoia (43:03) The Explosion of Farmville (45:45) Zynga's Near-Death Experience on Facebook (48:36) Why Failure Machines Reveal Your Best Ideas (49:28) The Thing that Almost Killed Words with Friends (53:05) Why the Minimum Viable Product Approach is Hurting You (54:03) Building Fast is More Important than Building Right (56:19) How Zynga Missed Their Instagram Moment (58:50) Your Company Should Be a Democratic Dictatorship (1:02:25) How to Build a Meritocracy in Your Company (1:03:44) Jeff Bezos' Invaluable Management Trick (1:05:25) Bezos Hack: Scaling Leadership with Tech Assistants ------ Newsletter: The Brain Food newsletter delivers actionable insights and thoughtful ideas every Sunday. It takes 5 minutes to read, and it's completely free. Learn more and sign up at fs.blog/newsletter ------ Follow Shane Parrish: X: https://x.com/shaneparrish Insta: https://www.instagram.com/farnamstreet/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shane-parrish-050a2183/ Follow Mark Pincus LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markpincus/ X: https://x.com/markpinc ------ Thank you to the sponsors for this episode: +CoinShares: Delivering Reason to Digital Asset Investing. https://coinshares.com/ +Granola AI, The AI notepad for people in back-to-back meetings: https://www.granola.ai/shane Check out the Granola Notes HeyGen is a message-first AI video platform that helps people and AI agents turn ideas into professional video in minutes. Try for free at https://www.heygen.com/ Join the salty rebellion: https://drinklmnt.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“I don't look to companies to be moral guides. I want them to be good companies. When you invest in the stock market, you want them to be growing fast and making profit. That's it. There's nothing more to it.” — Keith Teare If it's Saturday, it must be our weekly tech show. Before we went live, That Was the Week publisher Keith Teare told me it wasn't a big news week. He was wrong, of course (as he often is). The really BIG news this week, which Keith conveniently missed, is that Anthropic overtook OpenAI as the world's most valuable AI startup. Dario Amodei's AI startup raised $65 billion this week, putting its valuation at $900 billion, way ahead of OpenAI's last round at $730 billion. Keith says, without any proof, that they've cooked their numbers. Which makes this week's news even tastier. The more interesting story, for Keith at least, is Sam Altman's latest pivot: that humans need stakes in the AI platforms whose wealth they help create. Rather than Patagonia-style moral corporations (which Keith says would make him “throw up”), it should be the responsibility of the state or government to make capitalism more moral. But even slippery Sam got outpivoted this week by Anthropic, who sent a co-founder to Rome to do a deal with the Pope. Leo XIV's new encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” is Anthropic's papal pivot. It's the smart model for value investing in the AI age. Five Takeaways • Anthropic Tops OpenAI — But the Numbers May Be Wrong: Anthropic raised $65 billion this week at a $900 billion valuation, overtaking OpenAI's last round at $730 billion. The VCs backing it — Green Oaks, Sequoia, Altimeter, Dragoneer — are credible. Andrew's argument: they've seen the books. Keith's counter: the VCs are playing a different game. They expect two to three times their money at IPO and they'll probably get it — not because the revenue numbers are solid, but because the only way is up right now. The real test: the S-1, which requires audited accounts. Keith's prediction: the revenue numbers will look different when the SEC sees them. • Dario's Credibility Problem — But Claude 4.8 Is Fantastic: Keith has consistently characterised Dario Amodei as “slightly juvenile” and has long been sceptical of Anthropic's public positioning. This week he cites Om Malik and the All In podcast in support of the revenue numbers critique. But he is careful to separate the man from the product: Claude 4.8, released two days ago, is “fantastic.” At SignalRank, Keith's firm, Claude rebuilt an entire agent valuation workflow in an hour that would have taken days manually. Andrew's observation: Andrew is now Anthropic's newest fan. He has replaced Spurs with Anthropic as his team. • Altman's Pivot: From UBI to Ownership: Sam Altman has shifted his public narrative on AI and labour. Previously: UBI — universal basic income — as the answer to mass unemployment. Now: ownership. Humans need to own stakes in the AI platforms whose wealth they help generate. Not welfare. Not redistribution. Ownership. Keith's verdict: it's an interesting and significant move. More interesting than Amodei's continued fearmongering about AI devastation. Andrew notes that Altman seems to have genuinely grown up in the last two months. His tone is markedly different. • Patagonia Capitalism Would Make Keith Throw Up: The week's interview of the week: Eric Ries on Incorruptible, arguing that great companies stay great by choosing a higher moral purpose — the Patagonia model. Keith's response: it would make him throw up. He doesn't want companies to be moral guides. He wants them to be profit machines. Moral guidance is the job of politics. And politics, he acknowledges, is massively disappointing. He does agree with Ries on one thing: Sundar Pichai, as an individual, should care about the future. But Google's job is to make money. That's it. • Where Does Moral Guidance Come From? The Populists: Andrew's closing question: if not corporations, not politicians, not the pope — where does moral guidance come from? Keith's reluctant answer: the populists. Because the people care. They care about the future. And in the absence of politicians they can trust, they go elsewhere. Keith sees this as inevitable rather than desirable. Populism is the unintended consequence of political failure. The people filling the gap that broken institutions left. It's not a solution. It's a symptom. About the Guest Keith Teare is a British-American entrepreneur, investor, and publisher of the That Was the Week newsletter. He is a co-founder of TechCrunch and Andrew's regular TWTW co-host. References: • That Was the Week by Keith Teare. • Om Malik, “The Copy and the Guru” — the post on Anthropic's revenue numbers referenced in the conversation. • All In Podcast — referenced for the Anthropic S-1 revenue discussion. • Episode 2921: Eric Ries on Incorruptible — the interview of the week discussed in the show. • Episode 2915: Keith Teare on capitalism and AI — the preceding TWTW, referenced at the opening. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,900 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters: (00:31) - Introduction: ten days since the last TWTW (01:01) - The big news: Anthropic tops OpenAI at $900 billion (01:53) - Keith's reaction: both true and BS (02:22) - OpenAI is further ahead on IPO filing (03:15) - Om Malik and the revenue numbers: what does misleading mean? (03:41) - The All In podcast and Dario's credibility (04:21) - Anthropic's $65 billion raise: the VCs' game (04:42) - But Claude 4.8 is fantastic: the SignalRank story (06:16) - Dario vs Sam: who's more grown up? (07:00) - Altman's pivot: from UBI to ownership (08:00) - Keith admits he was wrong about OpenAI's dominance (09:47) - What did Keith get wrong? (10:36) - Corporate vs consumer AI dominance (15:00) - Agentic AI: the big theme in Keith's newsletter (20:00) - The pope: Leo XIV and AI (25:00) - Moral cap...
Today, Ryann and Sequoia are losing it over JoJo's cancelled return to Broadway, Love Island USA's note to fans ahead of the S8 cast announcement, Sean Evan and KeKe Palmer's interview on Baby, This Is KeKe Palmer, and Cynthia Erivo's interview with Vanity Fair. JOIN OUR PATREON: https://patreon.com/FreshlyPopd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
nFactorial Intelligence - еженедельный обзор новостей из мира стартапов и ИИ Cтратегия DeepSeek на $10 трлн против Nvidia, Марк Андриссен у Джо Рогана за 3:20:00 раздаёт AI-альфу, плагины Higgsfield внутри Adobe Premiere и After Effects, Гэвин Бэйкер объясняет почему AI-цикл избежит пузыря, а Джеффри Хинтон предупреждает что спать спокойно не стоит, AMD пробил $500; Миядзаки в 2016 назвал AI-анимацию оскорблением жизни, Гарри Тан из YC: «moat — это глагол», Андриссен про успешные компании из «product first», Пол Грэм рисует Пифагора 14-летнему сыну и спорит о бросании учёбы в 18, Безос объясняет почему никто не копирует «get-rich-slowly» Баффетта, Стэнфорд доказал что прогулка даёт +60% креатива, парадокс AI от Дэна Шиппера, Канат Байгарин про физику плазмы, почему Кристофер Нолан не пользуется email, Альфред Лин из Sequoia про конечные и бесконечные игры Упомянутые ссылки: https://spotlight-panic.vercel.app/ - Spotlight Panic: вайб-кодинг игра для nFactorial AI Cup https://frog-pond4.vercel.app/ - Frog Pond Final: ещё одна работа с nFactorial AI Cup https://aldar-kose-aul-quest.vercel.app/ - Aldar Kose Aul Quest: казахский фольклор в вайб-кодинг игре https://nfactorial-school.kit.com/posts/nfactorial-weekly-20-3 - 3 эпизода Acquired про Costco, Nvidia и Berkshire Hathaway https://x.com/Hesamation/status/2059660001581441165 - Миядзаки в 2016 году увидел AI-анимацию и сказал: «оскорбление жизни, конец света близок» https://x.com/ramit/status/2059754959516873149 - Рамит Сэти ушёл в 3,5-месячный саббатикал: Барселона, Париж, Марракеш, Япония https://x.com/levelsio/status/2059351181516816409 - AMD пробил $500: levelsio поздравляет всех, кто зашёл в позицию https://x.com/higgsfield/status/2059690191187824681 - Higgsfield запускает плагины для Adobe Premiere Pro и After Effects https://x.com/paulg/status/2059618578211438884 - Пол Грэм нарисовал 14-летнему сыну доказательство теоремы Пифагора https://x.com/Giuliano_Mana/status/2059634348597330326 - Джулиано Мана: «Я думаю об этом каждый божий день» https://x.com/StartupArchive_/status/2059301030278595016 - Гарри Тан из YC: «Moat — это не существительное, это глагол» https://x.com/ihtesham2005/status/2058920173491695764 - Стэнфорд доказал: прогулка повышает креативность на 60% https://x.com/paulg/status/2059011859953410286 - Пол Грэм: идея стартапа невалидна, если работает только при толпе пользователей https://x.com/gdb/status/1621333381836570627 - Грег Брокман вспоминает как стартовал OpenAI https://x.com/Scobleizer/status/2058720543780786413 - Скобл: пришло время фаундерам подавать заявки на YC и аналоги https://x.com/StartupArchive_/status/2058878244901052849 - Марк Андриссен: успешные компании всегда стартовали «product first» https://x.com/CAronitpereira/status/2058596815679983909 - Кейс Gillette: 100 лет доминирования в бритвах как тезис для инвестиций https://x.com/paulg/status/2058492772726804943 - Пол Грэм против бросания учёбы в 18 ради стартапа https://x.com/nikunj/status/2059772109480718814 - Никундж Котхари: «Покажите миру свою одержимость» https://x.com/MilkRoadMacro/status/2058162358242140326 - Гэвин Бэйкер объясняет, почему этот AI-цикл может избежать пузыря https://x.com/ayushjaiswal/status/2058272419106951345 - Аюш Джайсвал об интервью с Илоном: «лучший опыт собеседования в жизни» https://x.com/SJosephBurns/status/2058108196787499495 - Безос про Баффетта: «Get-rich-slowly — поэтому никто не копирует» https://x.com/MidnightMuse___/status/2058208882636607854 - Почему у японских пар самые стабильные браки: одно правило, которое игнорируют западные терапевты https://x.com/bookwormengr/status/2057909493250539891 - Стратегия DeepSeek на $10 трлн: Китай строит свою AI-индустрию железа https://x.com/itsolelehmann/status/2057909733491937555 - Марк Андриссен у Рогана: 3 часа 20 минут чистой AI-альфы https://x.com/aakashgupta/status/2057744283256696989 - Почему Кристофер Нолан не пользуется e-mail https://x.com/sairahul1/status/2057808907553431946 - Крёстный отец AI: «Если ты спокойно спишь — ты невнимательно следишь» https://x.com/Alfred_Lin/status/2057870289783156835 - Альфред Лин из Sequoia: в бизнесе есть конечные и бесконечные игры — играть надо в обе https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gn0i2AUXik - Канат Байгарин про физику плазмы и термоядерный синтез https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQVDi79A4JI - Эпизод 1: как строится компания на миллиард долларов https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D3hDmGhFhA&list=WL&index=6&t=3365s - Парадокс AI от Дэна Шиппера: больше автоматизации — больше людей и больше работы https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqOCyhXnKYA&list=WL&index=2&t=8721s - Бердыев как мыслитель: выше Де Дзерби — только Анчелотти https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLagAm1sWIE&list=WL&index=3 - Саша Барон Коэн больше не вернёт Али Джи и снимется в «Ladies First» https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOINLHcqvYw&t=2s - TigerBelly 460: Бобби Ли встречает своего «питательного близнеца» Сон Канга https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou_DYLKzekk - MADtv: классический скетч «Корейская мыльная опера», все 5 эпизодов https://www.netflix.com/title/80244853 - Кен Чонг: «You Complete Me, Ho» — стенд-ап про Голливуд и «Похмелье» https://www.netflix.com/title/81728168 - The Bus: A French Football Mutiny
Ignacio Vacchiano, country manager en Iberia de Leverage Shares, analiza los índices en Wall Street, que marcan triple récord, la tecnología, que también está en máximos gracias a las grandes subidas de Snowflake y Dell y como Anthropic ha superado por primera vez en valoración a Open AI. “El mercado está mirando al lado geopolítico y está ignorando el dato de PCE”, afirma el invitado. La jornada de ayer estuvo marcada también por el dato de inflación de abril, que se dispara hasta el 3,8%. Es el mayor aumento desde mayo de 2023. “Yo creo que es un dato negativo, aunque fuera un poco en lo estimado y como que el mercado prevé o piensa que se va a parar en estos niveles y se soluciona el conflicto”, afirma el invitado. También destaca en after hours la subida del 40% en el after hours de Dell, después de publicar cuentas al cierre. Sus resultados superan las expectativas, sobre todo sus ingresos vinculados a la IA, que superan los 16.000 millones y suponen un crecimiento del 757% interanual. Además, supera previsiones con sus ingresos de 44.000 millones y su beneficio por acción de 4,86 dólares. El country manager en Iberia de Leverage Shares señala que “para todo el año ingresos daba un 16% más que los estimados medios, pero eso ha subido a un 40%” y que la subida “es exagerada cuando ya el valor había venido subiendo un 180% en los últimos 12 meses”. El foco también ha ido para Anthropic, que ha superado por primera vez en valoración a Open AI. Ha cerrado una ronda de financiación de 65.000 millones de dólares liderada por grandes fondos como Sequoia, Altimeter o Dragoneer. La operación eleva la valoración de Anthropic hasta los 965.000 millones de dólares. Sobre las salidas a Bolsa de estas tecnológicas señala que “puede hacer explotar el globo como pasó en el año 2000”.
AI Unraveled: Latest AI News & Trends, Master GPT, Gemini, Generative AI, LLMs, Prompting, GPT Store
AI Unraveled: Latest AI News & Trends, Master GPT, Gemini, Generative AI, LLMs, Prompting, GPT Store
Today, Sequoia and Ryann are losing it over The Summer House reunion part 1 with Morena Renee. JOIN OUR PATREON: https://patreon.com/FreshlyPopd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Sequoia Holmes & Ryann Graham join the show to take stunning calls about kicking your ex out of your shared bed, and a hot firefighter holding your panties hostage.Do you drink coffee? - https://perfectpersoncoffee.com/Join The Patreon: https://bit.ly/PPPTRN -Weekly Bonus episodes every Friday & ad-free extended version of this episode)Buy the Coffee!! perfectpersoncoffee.comWatch on Youtube: https://bit.ly/PerfectPodYTWatch Miles' Main Channel Videos: https://bit.ly/MilesbonYTFollow On Insta To Call-In!: https://bit.ly/PPPodGramTell a friend about the show! Tweet it! Story it! Scream it!Advertise on Perfect Person via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- TrueFoundry, founded by Nikunj Bajaj, is an AI infrastructure company building an "AI Gateway" that helps enterprises build, ship, and govern agentic AI applications, focusing on observability and governance for AI agents. - The company has raised over $22 million, with pre-seed investment from Sequoia and India Capital, and Series A led by Intel Capital; notable angel investors include Naval Ravikant, Anthony Goldblum, Gokul Rajaram, Sian Banister, and Lenny Rachitsky. - The founding team leveraged their experience at Meta and WorldQuant to identify a gap in the market: the need for a vertically integrated stack for machine learning and AI, similar to what large tech companies use internally. - TrueFoundry's go-to-market strategy focused on serving large enterprises from the start, building robust infrastructure before launching, and validating their approach through extensive primary market research and early customer conversations. - The company's north star metric is the proportion of an organization's compute running on TrueFoundry, and their key advice for founders is to balance short-term market needs with a clear long-term vision, maintaining transparency and adaptability within the team. Sponsored by Auth0 for Startups → 1-year free https://auth0.com/startups/vip Auth0 is an adaptable authentication and authorization platform that helps you secure your apps and AI agents. It delivers convenience, privacy, and security so you can focus on building a great UX. FOUNDER PROFILE: Nikunj Bajaj, Founder of TrueFoundry https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikunj-bajaj-10476824
At the home improvement company Lowe's, the marketing team is fittingly led by someone who believes in rolling up your sleeves and getting the job done. CMO Jennifer Wilson describes her approach as "impact over optics." "I care about the brand and I care about the work and I care about the outcome to the customer," Jennifer says. "I put very little value on, well, what will everybody think of that? Or what's the outcome for me in that? ... One could argue maybe you could be in a different place in your career had you taken a you-first angle, but it's not who I am." Today on Building Better CMOs, Jennifer and Greg talk about her experience in merchandising, how Lowe's is adapting to a "K-shaped economy", and leveraging customer data to build loyalty and deepen retention. Plus: Why every marketer should "Be a Sequoia, Not a Bonsai." 00:00 Introduction 01:47 The Macro Landscape and Consumer Mindset 04:12 Innovative Home Services and Subscription Models 09:12 Jennifer's Merchandising Background 14:52 Leading Organizational Transformation 17:49 Leveraging Data to Eliminate Customer Irritants 25:12 Lessons in Building a Retail Media Network 28:47 Career Advice: Humility, Impact, and Lateral Moves 32:21 Emotional Maturity and Understanding Personal Motivators 38:53 Prioritization and Profitable Growth 46:50 Bridging Marketing and Finance 51:10 Customer Experience as the Heart of Modern Branding 56:14 Elevating Service with Generative AI and Mylow 58:34 The Role of the CMO in 2030 Full transcript This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod Follow Building Better CMOs in your podcast app Rate and review the podcast Jennifer's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn
Jake Stauch is the co-founder and CEO of Serval, the AI-native enterprise service management platform. Serval was founded in 2024 and has already raised over $125M across rounds led by Redpoint and Sequoia at a $1B+ valuation. Before Serval, Jake spent five years on the product team at Verkada and earlier founded NeuroPlus, a brain-sensing hardware company that made video games for kids with ADHD.In this episode of Summation, Jake and Auren discuss:Why Anthropic has added more ARR in the past few months than ServiceNow has in the past 20 yearsThe "forward deployed engineer" hire and why he recruits future founders instead of solutions engineersWhy talent density is the only remaining moat in the age of AIThe Silicon Valley collusion around not poaching each other's employeesYou can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Jake Stauch on X at @jakeserval
Everyone wanted the commerce front end. Nobody wanted the data.Joe Gadreau watched agency after agency walk away from the hardest — and most important — part of the commerce stack while he was at Salsify. So he went and built it himself.Recorded live at Salsify's Digital Shelf Summit in Atlanta, Christian sat down with Joe Gadreau, founder and CEO of Lettuce Commerce, for a conversation about what it means to be an AI-native services company in 2024, why the "bill you forever" managed services model is dying, and how the convergence of software and services is reshaping what the next generation of consulting firms actually looks like.What we cover: Why Joe left one of the first 20 seats at Salsify to start his own thing, the car and fuel analogy that explains why product content is the most overlooked piece of the commerce stack, how Lettuce Commerce is going after legacy SI firms head-on, Sequoia's thesis on the next trillion dollar company masquerading as a services firm, and what a bootstrapped founder thinks about capital, scale, and the right moment to consider outside investment.⏱️ TIMESTAMPS0:26 — Welcome and guest intro: Joe Gadreau, founder and CEO of Lettuce Commerce0:44 — Joe's background: athlete tracking technology to employee #20 at Salsify1:40 — Why Salsify was the right place to build a professional foundation2:34 — The moment you know it's time to start your own thing3:13 — The thesis: everyone builds the commerce front end, nobody fuels it with data4:25 — "Let us help" — where the name Lettuce Commerce actually came from5:16 — What Lettuce Commerce does: systems integrator meets strategic consultancy6:30 — Helping clients pick the right technology, not just implement what they chose7:43 — How Joe thinks about competing with Accenture Song and Amplify8:00 — AI-native from day one: founded January 2024, the same era as ChatGPT9:00 — Eating the lunch of legacy services firms built on perpetual managed services revenue9:41 — The difference between hand-holding and genuine change management11:22 — Repeat customers who want help with the next stage vs. dependency models11:52 — The software-services convergence: what does it actually mean for a services business?12:17 — Sequoia's bold statement: the next trillion dollar company will be a software company masquerading as a services firm13:03 — Is Lettuce the orchestrator or part of a bigger journey?13:26 — Bootstrapped and proud — and approaching the point where capital could accelerate ambition14:34 — Controlling your own destiny while staying open to the right combination14:57 — Christian's read: a product-led partnership is in Lettuce's not-too-distant future
Scott from Portal Pros is back, and this time the conversation is all about Toyotas — because Portal Pros has been busy expanding well beyond Jeeps. Jimmy and Tyler catch up with Scott on everything that’s happened since his last appearance: Portal Pros installed their first set of portals on a Lexus GX470 (basically a bougie 4Runner with a DVD player and leather seats), stress-tested it at Holister Hills, broke a ring gear in Moab, got bailed out by the FJ Cruiser Facebook community the same night, and somehow drove the thing home. If you’re wondering how capable a portal-equipped Toyota can be on trails it has no business being on — this episode answers that question pretty thoroughly. From there, Scott digs into the numbers most people actually want to know: what does a portal build cost compared to a traditional suspension build on a Toyota? They run two comparisons — a mild build and an extreme build — and the results are more interesting than you’d expect. On the mild side, portals run about $3,000 more than a traditional lift kit setup, but you’re getting ground clearance, gear reduction, and the ability to transfer them to your next vehicle. On the extreme side — when you’re comparing portals to a full Marlin Crawler long travel kit plus a Dana 60 rear axle swap — portals actually come out around $6,000 cheaper. They also cover what Toyota applications are available now (4th and 5th gen 4Runner, 2nd and 3rd gen Tacoma, GX470, GX460), what’s coming soon (200 series Land Cruiser, Sequoia, 2nd gen Tundra), why Portal Pros is probably not making a Super Duty version anytime soon, and why Scott designed these things to be installed in your driveway and rebuilt on the trail. A good one if you’ve ever thought about portals and talked yourself out of it over the price. Portal Pros:Website – https://portalprosoffroad.com/Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/portal_pros/?hl=enYouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@portal_pros– Monthly newsletter (hand-written by Scott, no AI) — sign up at their site We have a massive discount this month with Rusoh Fire Extinguishers. You can get 25% off this month only with the discount code Rusohcrawlers. Go grab yours today! SnailTrail4x4 Discord: https://discord.gg/yFyFFkQbuyCome hang out with us on the SnailTrail4x4 Discord — it’s the easiest way to connect with Tyler and Jimmy directly, chat with fellow offroad enthusiasts, and get first access to Group Buys and Treasure Hunt token drops. MORRFlate Giveaway at 900 Reviews on Apple Podcast. But our next giveaway is when we reach 800 reviews; we are giving away an OnX Elite Membership. We will also give away an OnX Elite membership when we get to 850. However, when we reach 900 Reviews, we are teaming up with MORRFlate for a $1000 MF Product Giveaway. Go over to Apple Podcasts to leave your review now and become eligible to win. Congratulations to A13XMONT, who won a set of tires from Yokohama Tire! Call us and leave us a VOICEMAIL!!! We want to hear from you even more!!! You can call and say whatever you like! Ask a question, leave feedback, correct some information about welding, say how much you hate your Jeep, and wish you had a Toyota! We will air them all, live, on the podcast! +01-916-345-4744. If you have any negative feedback, you can call our negative feedback hotline, 408-800-5169. 4Wheel Underground has all the suspension parts you need to take your off-road rig from leaf springs to a performance suspension system. We just ordered our kits for Kermit and Samantha and are looking forward to getting them. The ordering process was quite simple, and after answering the questionnaire, we ensured we got the correct and best-fitting kits for our vehicles. If you want to level up your suspension game, check out 4Wheel Underground. SnailTrail4x4 Podcast is brought to you by all of our peeps over at irate4x4! Make sure to stop by and see all of the great perks you get for supporting SnailTrail4x4! Discount Codes, Monthly Give-Always, Gift Boxes, the SnailTrail4x4 Community, and the ST4x4 Treasure Hunt! Thank you to all of those who support us! We couldn’t do it without you guys (and gals!)! SnailSquad Monthly Giveaway Massive thanks to this month’s giveaway with Rusoh Fire Extinguishers. We have one of their 2.5-pound extinguishers to give away to a lucky winner. This extinguisher has an 18-year shelf life and is the best fire extinguisher for any off-road vehicle. To learn more, check out Rusoh.com. If you want a chance to win, sign up for the Giveaway Tier on Irate4x4 For the Month of April, we are giving away Gift Boxes. It’s Gift Box month, and two lucky individuals will win one of our gift boxes. These are jam-packed with goodies from tools to whiskey smokers. They are always different and always random. If you want a chance to win, sign up for the Giveaway Tier on Irate4x4 Listener Discount Codes: SnailTrail4x4 –SnailTrail15 for 15% off SnailTrail4x4 MerchMORRFlate – snailtraill4x4 to get 10% off MORRFlate Multi Tire Inflation Deflation™ Kits4WheelUnderground – snailtrail 10% offIronman 4×4 – snailtrail20 to get 20% off all Ironman 4×4 branded equipment!Sidetracked Offroad – snailtrail4x4 (lowercase) to get 15% off lights and recovery gearSpartan Rope – snailtrail4x4 to get 10% off sitewideShock Surplus – SNAILTRAIL4x4 to get $25 off any order!Mob Armor – SNAILTRAIL4X4 for 15% offSummerShine Supply – ST4x4 for 10% offBackpacker’s Pantry – Affiliate LinkLaminx Protective Films – Use the Link to get 20% off all products (Affiliate Link) Show Music: Midroll Music – ComaStudio Outroll Music – Meizong Kumbang
And the owner wants you to “steal” his template. This week, rapid custom manufacturer SendCutSend reached a valuation of $1.01 billion after a $110 million investment from Sequoia, Paradigm, and Patrick and John Collison—the guys who co-founded Stripe.The Reno, Nevada-based company is using the funds to launch a five-year plan to strengthen its American industrial base, which includes a $1 billion commitment to creating new U.S. manufacturing jobs and to domestically produced materials.The company also earmarked more than $250 million to expand existing facilities and establish new manufacturing hubs throughout the country. By merging software-first logic with high-speed domestic production, SendCutSend provides laser cutting, CNC machining, and finishing services with instant-buy access. The company wants to be America's "anything factory," delivering parts in as little as 24 hours.SendCutSend has spent the last eight years working on developing a model that allows users to get an instant quote and quickly begin production.The company said it has been largely bootstrapped until now, primarily funded by $6 million from friends and family. Company founder Jim Belosic believes the time is right to accept investment to meet the speed and volume requirements of a rapidly reindustrializing American economy.#Manufacturing #MadeInAmerica #SendCutSend #Automation #CNC #LaserCutting #IndustrialNews #ManufacturingNow #Reindustrialization #AmericanManufacturing #FactoryTech #ManufacturingIndustry #Startups #IndustrialAutomation #Aerospace #DefenseManufacturing #Robotics #SupplyChain #DataCenters #Innovation
Everyone in wealth management is talking about artificial intelligence, but too much of the conversation still centers on efficiency. Yes, saving time matters. But the bigger opportunity is moving firms from disconnected tools, dashboards and workflows into a world where AI can help deliver timely insights, proactive engagement and more personalized communication at scale. In this episode of The WealthStack Podcast, host Shannon Rosic sits down with A.J. De Rosa, CEO and co-founder of Intellebox, to explore what separates AI as a feature from it as a firmwide strategy, why agentic workflows are not the same as basic automation, and how compliance may become stronger, not weaker, when AI is designed with the right guardrails. Key takeaways: How client engagement and personalization have become the new bottlenecks in wealth management Why AI needs to evolve from point solutions into agentic operating systems How compliance could become stronger with AI-powered oversight and human review Why the future is not human versus AI, but human judgment plus machine intelligence Why efficiency alone is not a growth strategy for advisory firms Resources: Listen to WealthStack on Wealth Management Subscribe and listen to WealthStack on Apple Podcasts Subscribe and listen to WealthStack on Spotify Connect with Shannon Rosic: Shannon Rosic WealthStack website Wealth Management Connect with A.J. De Rosa: LinkedIn: A.J. De Rosa LinkedIn: Intellebox.ai Website: Intellebox.ai aj@Intellebox.ai Substack: A.J. De Rosa X: Intellebox.ai About Our Guest: AJ DeRosa is the Co-Founder and CEO of Intellebox.ai, where he leads the company's mission to redefine wealth management through agentic AI and a next-generation client engagement platform. His extensive experience in startup leadership, capital formation, and enterprise scaling has positioned him exceptionally well for this next chapter, building an industry-transforming company at the intersection of AI and wealth advisory. AJ brings over 29 years of revenue and operations leadership across finance, AI, and technology. He joined Intellectus Partners as a Partner and CEO-in-Residency, specifically recruited to incubate and launch Intellebox.ai. During his time at Intellectus, AJ helped shape the firm's growth strategy while architecting the vision, commercial model, and market approach that became the foundation of Intellebox. Before launching Intellebox.ai, AJ played integral roles in five venture-backed startups. Most recently, as Chief Revenue Officer and Section 16 Officer at Evolv Technologies, he helped lead the company through hyper-growth and its successful NASDAQ public listing in 2021. Prior to Evolv, AJ served as Chief Revenue Officer at Orbital Insight, where he secured over $120 million in venture capital from firms including Sequoia, Google Ventures, and Lux Capital, relationships he continues to support as an advisor. Earlier, AJ spent more than a decade at Eze Software Group, where he contributed to major private equity transactions and served as Co-Head of Global Sales, solidifying his deep roots in the investment management and hedge fund ecosystem. AJ holds a B.S. in Economics from Lehigh University.
Interview with Xin Yan is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sign, a sovereign-grade digital infrastructure for national systems of money, identity, and capital. By Selva Ozelli Esq., CPA, Author of "Sustainably Investing in Digital Assets Globally" Xin Yan is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sign, a sovereign-grade digital infrastructure for national systems of money, identity, and capital. Under his leadership, Sign has raised a total of $55 million. Other major backers include YZi Labs, IDG Capital, Sequoia and Circle. Trends to watch with Xin Yan An electrical engineer by profession, before co founding Sign in 2021, Xin served as an investor at Huobi Group. What started as an e-signature tool (EthSign) Sign has expanded into Sign Protocol, an omni-chain attestation protocol, and TokenTable, a platform for managing and distributing tokenized assets that bridge the gap between traditional legal agreements and blockchain technology. Yan advocates digital identity and sovereign technology, arguing that the next stage of blockchain adoption will be driven by real-world utility and revenue rather than just speculation. He often refers to the community and movement surrounding the protocol as the "Orange Dynasty". Xin's work currently centers on digital sovereignty, onchain verification, and building infrastructure for nation-states, including digital IDs and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). Yan is actively working with governments (e.g., in the UAE and Sierra Leone) to implement blockchain-enabled national infrastructure. Tell us about your educational and professional journey leading up to co-founding Sign. I was an electronic engineer by training, secured over 10 patents at school before dive-dropping into crypto by building my own mining rigs. That hands-on experience led me to a leading VC, where I spent three years as an investment manager and engineer backing cornerstone projects like Polkadot and Avalanche. In 2021, I combined that technical grit with my VC insights to co-found Sign. Tell us about Sign Sign builds secure infrastructure for digital money, identity, and capital. Sign has five years of production deployments and has reached a valuation of $1.3billion. Its systems support governments and regulated institutions in delivering secure, large-scale digital transformation, reaching more than 50 million people in production. Sign works with countries like UAE, Thailand, Kyrgyzstan, Singapore, Barbados and Sierra Leone. Most recently, Sign partnered with the Blockchain Center Abu Dhabi and has raised over $55M across three funding rounds. Your work at Sign currently centers on digital sovereignty, on-chain verification, and building infrastructure for nation-states, including digital IDs and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). Which countries are you actively working with? Thailand, Kyrgyzstan, Singapore, Barbados and Sierra Leone The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a leading global cryptocurrency hub, currently ranked third globally in crypto adoption behind only Singapore and Hong Kong. Its status is defined by a "pro-innovation" regulatory environment, zero personal income tax on crypto gains, and the presence of over 1,800 crypto companies as of early 2026. The UAE's central bank digital currency (CBDC) project, known as the Digital Dirham, has transitioned from an experimental pilot to a formal legal reality as of early 2026 with the Digital Dirham officially recognized as legal tender under Federal Decree-Law No. 6 of 2025. Managed by the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE), this initiative is a core pillar of the nation's multi-year Financial Infrastructure Transformation (FIT) program. How is Sign involved with UAE's CBCD project? Sign and ADBC recently partnered to accelerate sovereign blockchain infrastructure in Abu Dhabi. In 2026, the tokenization of the world financial market is rapidly advancing through stablecoins and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), which function as programmable, on-chain cash for ...
In this episode, we are joined by Armando Quintero – Director of California State Parks. Armando spent more than two decades with the National Park Service, serving as a park ranger at Sequoia, Point Reyes, and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. He later led the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at UC Merced, served on the California Water Commission, including as its chair, and was elected to the Marin Municipal Water District Board. In 2020, Governor Newsom appointed him director of California State Parks, one of the largest state park systems in the nation, with over 280 parks spanning 1.6 million acres. Armando truly has a passionate and purpose-driven approach to his work, and how he views his responsibility as a leader. He joins us to talk about environmental leadership, equity and access in the outdoors, and what it takes to protect California's most treasured landscapes.
The Automotive Troublemaker w/ Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier
Shoot us a Text.Episode #1343: Today we discuss dealers trusting people more than AI when it comes to lead follow-up, Hyundai's big push to repair struggling service satisfaction, and a new lawsuit claiming Toyota buyers deserve part of a potential $9 billion tariff refund.Show Notes with links:Dealers still believe the human element wins the sale. A new Urban Science survey shows strong confidence in showroom sales teams, but much less trust in AI lead follow-up. The takeaway? Dealers want better process visibility before turning things over to automation.72% of dealers said they're highly confident in their sales teams' ability to convert leads, while 75% say they respond in under five minutes.Dealers still see weak spots: 38% cited lack of real-time insight into lost sales and 34% pointed to inconsistent follow-up.Consumers expect speed. Urban Science found 82% say follow-up matters, and 72% expect a response within 24 hours.AI still has a trust gap. Only 14% of dealers trust AI tools for lead follow-up compared to 57% who trust in-house sales teams.Urban Science's Eric Demont said dealers need “a clear understanding” of wins, losses and defection patterns to improve conversion rates.Hyundai is trying to fix one of its biggest weak spots: service satisfaction. After years of complaints about delays, parts shortages and overloaded service departments, the automaker is rolling out mobile service vans, technician recruiting and dealership efficiency programs to win customers back.Hyundai says poor service capacity and years of engine replacement recalls overwhelmed dealerships and dragged down customer satisfaction scores.The brand has added 4,000+ service bays nationwide, while dealers are extending hours and adding Saturday service to handle demand.Hyundai plans to launch a 150-van mobile service fleet by year's end to handle oil changes, brake jobs, software updates and other light repairs at homes or workplaces.The company is also recruiting more technicians, improving diagnostic training and coaching 185 dealerships on service efficiency and workflow gaps.Hyundai's Michel Poirier said the goal is climbing back up JD Power rankings by 2028, adding: “Service is the most important part of the business.”A California Toyota buyer is taking aim at tariff pricing, claiming customers helped foot the bill for billions in import costs — and should get paid back if Toyota ever receives tariff refunds. A proposed class action lawsuit claims Toyota passed tariff costs onto buyers through higher vehicle and parts prices.The filing covers buyers and lessees of qualifying Toyota vehicles purchased between February 2025 and February 2026.Toyota reportedly absorbed about $9 billion in tariff-related costs tied to Japan, Canada and Mexico operations.Toyota recently raised prices on several models, including a $1,600 increase for the 2026 Sequoia, while calling the changes part of a “regular review of the prices.”Join Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier every morning for the Automotive State of the Union podcast as they connect the dots across car dealerships, retail trends, emerging tech like AI, and cultural shifts—bringing clarity, speed, and people-first insight to automotive leaders navigating a rapidly changing industry.Get the Daily Push Back email at https://www.asotu.com/JOIN the conversation on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asotu/
In 1891, a knot of men murdered a 1,300-year-old tree to prove it wasn't a "tall tale." We visit the Mark Twain Stump, a 16-foot-wide wooden stage that serves as a monument to early American hubris, the cost of disbelief, and the bittersweet birth of the conservation of the Sequoias. This episode is part of our Weekend Road Trip Series, where we bring you stories of the strange, incredible, and wondrous places right here in the United States, that you can see from the road. This series was produced in partnership with T-Mobile. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Mati Staniszewski, co-founder and CEO of ElevenLabs, joins Sequoia partner Andrew Reed at AI Ascent 2026 to talk about how a four-year-old company built a frontier audio AI business with just over 400 people and over $400M in revenue. He explains why audio was overlooked in 2022 when the rest of AI was chasing text and images, why ElevenLabs chose to monetize from day one rather than raise indefinitely, and why he believes voice will be the primary interface for agents, robots, and the next generation of computing. Also: why emotional intelligence is the next frontier in voice, and what happens when one voice agent realizes it's talking to another.
Clovis West High School was placed on lockdown after a suspicious phone call, prompting a response from law enforcement. Students and staff were kept inside classrooms while police investigated, and a nearby elementary school was also put on safety protocols before the situation was cleared and the campus deemed safe. After several hours, the initial search was called off amid reports the cub may have returned to its habitat. However, another sighting was reported a few hours later about a mile away near Spruce and Marks, prompting wildlife officials to resume their search. A massive cyberattack on the Canvas online learning system is affecting colleges across Central California, including Fresno State, UC Merced, and College of the Sequoias. The hack disrupted access to assignments and coursework, and officials say the incident may involve unauthorized access to student data, as schools work to restore systems and assess the impact. Please Like, Comment and Follow 'Philip Teresi on KMJ' on all platforms: --- Philip Teresi on KMJ is available on the KMJNOW app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever else you listen to podcasts. -- Philip Teresi on KMJ Weekdays 2-6 PM Pacific on News/Talk 580 AM & 105.9 FM KMJ | Website | Facebook | Instagram | X | Podcast | Amazon | - Everything KMJ KMJNOW App | Podcasts | Facebook | X | Instagram Please Like, Comment and Follow 'Philip Teresi on KMJ' on all platforms: --- Philip Teresi on KMJ is available on the KMJNOW app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever else you listen to podcasts. --Philip Teresi on KMJWeekdays 2-6 PM Pacific on News/Talk 580 AM & 105.9 FM KMJ | Website | Facebook | Instagram | X | Podcast | Amazon | -Everything KMJ KMJNOW App | Podcasts | Facebook | X | Instagram See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sponsored by Chargebee, subscription and revenue management → check out their startup offer: https://www.chargebee.com/startups - Samar Abbas, Founder of temporal.io https://www.linkedin.com/in/samar-abbas-381997/ - Samar Abbas, co-founder of Temporal.io, shares the journey of building an open-source platform that ensures durable execution of code, allowing developers to focus on business logic instead of handling failures and reliability. - Temporal.io originated from years of experience at companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Uber, where Samar and his co-founder iterated on workflow and state management systems, eventually creating a new category called "durable execution." - The company's open-source approach led to rapid community adoption, with major companies like Snap using Temporal for mission-critical workloads, validating the product's value and scalability. - Temporal.io monetizes by offering a fully managed cloud service with a consumption-based pricing model, aligning customer costs with the value delivered. - The company has raised significant funding, including a $300M Series D led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sapphire Ventures, reaching a $5B valuation.
If you have any sort of connection to former congressman Barney Frank, please reach out to Graham!Graham Neray is CEO of Oso. Oso provides authorization, governance, and security for AI agents to help customers confidently control their agent footprint. The company was founded in 2019 for authorization-as-a-service more generally, and they have since found traction using their technology to secure AI adoption. The team has raised from some of the top investors in the world including Sequoia, Felicis, and Harpoon. Before Oso, Graham was at MongoDB where he started in product marketing before taking over as Chief of Staff in 2016. Over 7 years he helped the company grow revenue 250x and headcount 30x. In the episode we discuss the transformation of MongoDB over his tenure, the lessons that transferred (and the ones that didn't), the evolution of Oso, controversial takes on building in stealth and creating an open-core company, and a lot more. https://www.osohq.com/
Boris Cherny, creator of Claude Code at Anthropic, joins Sequoia partner Lauren Reeder at AI Ascent 2026 to talk about where coding goes from here. He explains why he hasn't written a line of code in 2026, why he now ships dozens of PRs a day from his phone, and why he believes coding is effectively solved — at least for the code he writes. Also: why loops are the future, why he thinks Claude Code itself may be 100 lines of code a year from now, and why the invention of the printing press is the right analogy for what's about to happen to software.
Watch This Episode On YouTubeIf you're looking to understand the business of film, let me suggest listening to Ben Fritz, who covers entertainment for the Wall Street Journal and is my guest for the podcast.Why? Well, for me, it's two things. First of all, if you listen to his astonishing documentary podcast called "With Great Power: The Rise of Superhero Cinema", you get to hear why he's such a successful journalist. An executive will offer a throwaway line, and Ben simply asks: why? You get something much closer to the truth from a one syllable question than one might expect.It happens throughout this podcast series from 2023, and it is a true masterclass on how interviews should be conducted.And two -- he's just straight with people. In this episode, we talk about an article he recently co-wrote on MUBI, the streaming service, and the money they've lost over the past year. In almost any other situation, the company doesn't participate, the article is branded a hit piece, and the audience is left wondering about the veracity of the story.Instead, MUBI's CEO is quoted in the article, which tells me the respect he gives the co-authors.Or maybe it's three: just listen to the insight Ben provides in this episode. If you go by the notion that the business offers an explanation of the films that show up on our screens, there's no better person than Ben Fritz.In this episode, Ben and I talk about:his preference for hosting a podcast or being a guest on one;his ability to tell a story evenly without looking for gotcha moments, which distinguishes his journalism;how he got started in filmmaking;what he expects out of the summer festival market;what he's learned between covering filmmaking to AI and back to filmmaking;the future of AI in filmmaking;the "$50 Movie Ticket Has Arrived" article and what it means for theaters;what that means for indie filmmakers;the behind the scenes story of his article, "How VC Money and Israel Outrage Derailed a Hot Hollywood Startup" about MUBI;what MUBI's business model portends for the industry;how production companies make money in such a competitive environment -- branding;why Silicon Valley doesn't invest more in Hollywood;what's next for him and how things have changed since 2019;Ben's Indie Film Highlights: PINK WALL (2019) dir. by Tom Cullen; COW (2021) dir. by Andrea ArnoldMemorable Quotes:"I try to make clear to people I'm not gonna pull any punches, but I'm also not here to try to get a gotcha moment.""I feel like it's becoming a lot like everything in the American economy, which is, it's a have and have-nots world."" What I realized quickly is if you understand the business, then you understand why you get the movies and TV shows that you get, right?"" So you could see more movies getting made, more original movies getting made, more people who don't have access to Disney and Netflix being able to raise a little bit of money and make an interesting movie on their own. So we could see this blossoming of creativity that maybe would rival what we saw in the 1970s."" The danger, which some people in Hollywood think, is the more movies become a premium experience where you spend a lot of money, the more it becomes something people think of as I only do this two or three times a year," " I think the I'm gonna get a specialty label or specialty company to buy it and put it in theaters is...that's like winning the lottery at this point."" The one promising thing in this world of indie film theatrical I've seen recently is you've seen some YouTubers put movies into theaters and find a niche audience."" I was able to connect to a source who was just close to Mubi, who was able to give me a lot of inside information on really what happened."" Mubi is a solid business. That's why Sequoia invested in them. It is a healthy business. They just made this huge mistake last year.""My teenage son knows what A24 is, and that name means something to him.""Sequoia's investment in Mubi was shocking to a lot of people. This is so outside the box for what they normally do. And the only other prominent example of VC investment in entertainment is A24, which definitely has some VC investment in it."Links:Ben Fritz's WSJ PageBen Fritz's Website
Dmitri Dolgov, co-CEO of Waymo, joins Sequoia partner Konstantine Buhler at AI Ascent 2026 to talk about the 20-year arc from the DARPA Grand Challenge to fully autonomous service in eleven cities and counting. He explains how Waymo persisted through every AV hype cycle by treating safety as the non-negotiable foundation, why exponential scaling is finally here (10 of Waymo's 20 million autonomous rides have happened in the last seven months), and how the Waymo Foundation Model — a multimodal world action model that powers the driver, the simulator, and the critic — actually works under the hood. Also: why Waymo is now 13x safer than human drivers, and the moment a Waymo detected a pedestrian behind a city bus by reading the LiDAR returns of their feet.
"Many of these AI advancements, where the U.S. is more on the innovative theoretical side of creating new models... China's really ahead on commercializing them, and that's their advantage. I think saying that China and the U.S. are equivalent in AI is probably an overstatement. I think the AI center of innovation continues to be in Silicon Valley. This could change—the gap is closing. I do think the U.S. is still ahead, but I think China is catching up."Fresh out of the studio, Bernard Leong reconnects with Rebecca Fannin, founder of Silicon Dragon Ventures and author of Tech Titans of China, six years on from their first conversation about the original landmark book. Rebecca traces China's transformation from copier to innovator, the decoupling of US-China venture capital and the reroute of capital flows toward the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and an AI race where China commercialises while the US theorises. The conversation moves through Chinese EV dominance, humanoid robotics, and semiconductor self-sufficiency, before opening out to a multipolar tech order with India and Saudi Arabia rising. She closes with a hopeful note on reopening US-China collaboration.Episode Highlights:[00:00] Quote of the Day by Rebecca Fannin from Silicon Dragon Ventures[01:00] Introduction: Rebecca Fannin[03:00] From copier to innovator: the global perception shift[04:00] BAT plus ByteDance: still the tech titans[05:30] Beyond BAT: TMD, ByteDance, DiDi go global[07:00] Temu and the de minimis tariff hit[09:00] Cross-border VC decouples: Sequoia, GGV split[10:00] Capital reroutes to the Middle East and Singapore[11:30] No more golden era for cross-Pacific VC[12:00] AI, quantum, semiconductor funding dries up[13:00] The 2020-2023 crackdown and Beijing's reset[15:00] Apple's supply chain dependency hard to unwind[16:00] The AI race: Chinese open-source models surge[17:30] China commercialises, the US theorises[18:30] Silicon Valley adopts 996 and Chinese-style attacks[20:30] Chinese EVs surpass Tesla and European makers[22:00] Why Xiaomi built a car where Apple couldn't[22:30] DJI, Unitree, UBTech: China's robotics dominance[24:00] Humanoid robots and the policy maker dilemma[25:00] China's semiconductor self-sufficiency push[25:30] Nvidia export controls and the SMIC question[27:00] What few in the West truly understood five years ago[28:00] Quantum computing as the long-term frontier bet[29:00] Beyond binary: India, ASEAN, Saudi Arabia, Israel[31:30] Why China's rise became the biggest tech story[33:00] Hope for a reopening of US-China collaboration[33:30] ClosingProfile: Rebecca Fannin, Author of "The New Tech Titans of China" and Silicon Dragon VenturesLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-fannin-533128/Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.
This week on the show: Todd reports from inside the Oakland federal courthouse where Elon Musk is suing OpenAI, Sam Altman, and Microsoft, with jury selection revealing just how hard it is to find anyone neutral about Musk these days. Meanwhile, Microsoft and OpenAI restructured their partnership the same morning the trial began — and less than 24 hours later, OpenAI's models landed on Amazon's cloud. Then, Microsoft and Amazon both dropped blockbuster earnings, with Azure up 40%, AWS posting its fastest growth in 15 quarters, and the two companies combining for nearly $400 billion in capital spending this year alone. We also discuss a wild Semafor story about a serial entrepreneur who handed his entire life over to an AI agent that now emails people as him, sets up meetings without his knowledge, and even ordered him a computer. Plus, John tells the story of how Seattle's Flying Fish Partners — a VC firm with less than $250 million under management — hustled its way into a $1.1 billion seed round alongside Sequoia, Google, and Nvidia. And we tackle the quickly debunked rumor that Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook might buy the Seahawks. And finally, the return of the GeekWire Trivia Challenge.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Greg Brockman, co-founder and president of OpenAI, joins Sequoia partner Alfred Lin at AI Ascent 2026 for a conversation that spans the full OpenAI stack. He explains why the company will never have enough compute, why he believes we're 80% of the way to AGI, and why the agentic coding tools that wrote 20% of your code last December are now writing 80% of it. Also: why human attention is becoming the scarcest resource in AI-augmented work, and what it might be like to one day run an organization of 100,000 agents.
Limited BONUS: First 1,000 builders get $1,000. Claim yours while supplies lasts.: https://startup-ideas-pod.link/hyperagent I sit down with Howie Liu, co-founder and CEO of Airtable, to talk about the agent economy and the launch of HyperAgent. We walk through Sequoia's charts on AI agent deployment, the economics of token-based work versus human labor, and why frontier agents have crossed a threshold that changes how companies get built. Howie then does a live show-and-tell of HyperAgent, including a custom "Greg Isenberg contrarian AI" skill he spins up in real time. This one is for anyone building a solopreneur business, operating a fleet of agents, or trying to figure out where to place their bet in the agent ecosystem Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 02:22 – Sequoia's AI agent deployment chart reaction 04:41 – Copilot vs Autopilot territory and the $1T+ opportunity 08:13 – Agent economics vs human labor costs 11:12 – Fastest enterprise adoption curve in history 14:48 – The agent command center and fleet of 20 agents 18:03 – What is HyperAgent? 19:43 – Live demo: hyperlocal real estate market reports 22:38 – HyperAgent as the founder, not just the developer 23:21 – Street View, Zillow redesigns, and visual tool power 24:15 – Command center view across a fleet of agents 25:48 – Skills as the key primitive for frontier agents 26:30 – Building the Greg Isenberg contrarian AI skill live 32:31 – HyperAgent vs Perplexity Computer, Manus, OpenClaw, Codex 34:52 – Reviewing writing skill 36:55 – The arbitrage of persistence 41:31 – Confidence milestones: first dollar, $10K/month 35:27 – Reviewing contrarian tweet drafts live 45:05 – Giving the agent feedback and building rubrics 50:15 – Connectors, OAuth, and building custom API skills 53:03 – How to get started with HyperAgent 01:01:54 – Credit giveaway for listeners 01:03:31 – Closing Thoughts Key Points Frontier agents have crossed a threshold in the last 4–5 months where they function as true autonomous coworkers, not just chat assistants. Reframe agent cost by value delivered: a $150 token spend for a board memo beats hours of human time, so anchor on opportunity cost. The real arbitrage is persistence: 99% of people quit after one shot, while daily practice for 30/60/90 days produces top 1% operators. Skills are the most important primitive in frontier agents, turning generally intelligent models into domain experts through playbooks. HyperAgent's differentiation is a low floor plus a high ceiling, with rubrics, LLM-as-judge evals, and fleet-wide observability for scaling. Aim for $100B companies with under 5 employees, built on fleets of always-on agents mapped to human job roles. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND HOWIE ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://x.com/howietl Hyperagent: https://www.hyperagent.com Airtable: https://www.airtable.com-
Gaby never planned to leave the trail. She was sick, alone, and wandering near Vernal Fall while her family hiked in Yosemite. When she walked off the trail to photograph a tree, she stepped into something she still cannot fully explain. The forest went quiet. The trees started moving in a gentle, rhythmic dance that felt like an invitation. And for the next four hours, she was somewhere else entirely, though it only felt like two minutes. Her story is one of the most vivid firsthand accounts of the Missing 411 phenomenon we have ever heard, and she is here to tell it because her love for her five-year-old son pulled her back before the door closed behind her. And the photo of the tree that started it all never showed up on her phone. We unpack Gaby's experience alongside the broader mystery of people vanishing in America's national parks. From time slips and sound vacuums to the role of granite, quartz, and physical ailments, her account checks nearly every box that David Paulides has cataloged over decades of research. She also shares a wild encounter at Sequoia involving massive eyes in the trees and her stepdad's own strange experience at Zion. This is one of those episodes that will make you think twice the next time someone says "stay on the trail." Want to listen to this episode and a catalog of more than 100 other members-only episodes? Check out the vibrant community, extra episodes, and perks of being a Blurry Creatures member at https://blurrycreatures.com/pages/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The lovely and talented EJ Marcus returns to the show this week!! Drew and EJ talk about being turned green, working at a preschool, fish hatcheries, how to handle a vegan dog's diet, Club Penguin, the power of Sequoia trees, and so much more.EJ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ejhavingfun/?hl=enEJ Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ejhavingfunFollow The Comment Section on IG! https://www.instagram.com/thecommentsection/Shop Mother's Day Beauty Gifts at SephoraVisit Macy's to discover the new Calvin Klein euphoria elixirs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
(April 22, 2026) United States and Iran delay talks in high-stakes game of chicken. California homeowners face ‘Zone 0’ changes due to fires. DOJ charges Southern Poverty Law Center with fraud. How a pickleball injury highlights fraud in California’s hospice industry. Wildfires killed nearly 20% of the world’s giant Sequoias… how crews are racing to save the rest.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Is Everyone In Hell? The New Yorker Article: they are CLEARLY in hell. Listen to our PRE-SHOW and watch us on VIDEO only on Patreon. Join the Rose Garden today! CONNECT WITH US: Instagram | Twitter | TikTok | Merch EMAIL: 2blackgirls1rose@gmail.com Follow Natasha's Substack The Nite Owl: theniteowl.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The return of the Big Show is here on Calm Down with Erin Andrews and Charissa Thompson! Charissa explains why her afternoon consisted of running errands without undergarments and an eventful trip with her family to see the sequoias. Erin and Charissa talk about using AI to test new hairstyles before making the big commitment. Plus, Erin shares a personal life update and why you should always remember to be thankful and appreciative of healthcare professionals. Get your tickets for Calm Down Live at Netflix is a Joke Fest: https://www.ticketweb.com/event/netflix-is-a-joke-presents-hollywood-improv-the-main-room-tickets/14172844?pl=hollyimprovSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.