Why you’re more likely to find something worth building in a group than alone.

We had our second portfolio company IPO this week. We are very proud to have partnered with Puneet and Sanjay at Moneyview. They are incredible entrepreneurs who have poured everything they have to building their company. Moments like these make you feel proud but also deeply appreciative of the founders journey. It is long, hard and tough as nails. But yet we do it because to create something new is the highest form of purpose. Onwards.

Notes from the “Founder Mindset” talk I give at every @spc Founder Fellowship kickoff. I updated it more for this cohort than ever before because this window is like no other. Notes from 💬: You’re in the arena at one of the most extraordinary moments in history. Windows like this are rare, and they don’t last forever. Be maximally ambitious. Make it count. The 6 founder mindsets I spoke about: 1. Epistemic humility & audacious courage. Learn aggressively, question your assumptions, then find the courage to commit with imperfect information. 2. Demand deltas. Every day, leave with a new learning, a new idea, or a sharper narrative. 3. Don’t negotiate against yourself. Don’t compromise the ask. Let someone else tell you no. 4. Be talent greedy. Always be pulling exceptional people into your orbit. 5. Always be selling. Every conversation is a rep. Practice creating belief before there’s proof. 6. The energy comes from you. You set the pace, urgency, and ambition. The ask: Lean into the @spc community. Be vulnerable, ask for help, and let the people around you compound your ambition.

I’m excited to announce that @arceuslegal is launching with $17M in funding, led by @greycroftvc, with participation from @craft_ventures, @spc, and others. As a founder, I always hated how helpless I felt working with law firms. I went through four or five different firms and somehow the experience was always the same. I’d be waiting on something important to our business with no idea when I’d hear back. I’d have to re-explain our business over and over again. And I dreaded jumping on calls because I knew every minute was costing me money. We started Arceus because we believe every business deserves a better law firm. One that moves faster, costs less, and puts the client first. And we’re just getting started. ↓

"Epistemic humility and audacious courage." The world is moving fast enough that there's a lot you don't know yet. The job is to go learn it and act anyway. That's the ask of the Founder Fellowship: maximal ambition, and intensity with intent. Welcome, F26 Founder Fellows!

The question I keep on asking everyone @spc is "What is the maximalist version of this company?". Perhaps this has always been true....but if you are building a company today, then the only way is to have the boldest, most audacious and maximalist version of the idea and how it can change the arc of the future. If you start small, you will struggle to get funding, hire great people and ultimately to make a dent in the future. This is the paradox of AI. It makes building easier but dramatically raises the floor on what it means to be a great startup.

Kicking off our latest @spc cohort of frontier builders. An extraordinarily talented and inspiring group working across computational biology, model alignment, AI quantization, aerospace, manufacturing, and more. They’re starting companies at the most consequential moment I’ve lived through. What a time to build. Let's get to work.

Very exciting new partnership for @baseten! We're excited for a many model future.

If you're looking to work on an incredibly ambitious product with a super talented team full of people you'll actually like, you couldn't do better than @nuance_ai.

“Every great advancement in medicine has come from seeing something that was once invisible.” @Helmy_L2K, CEO of @GuardantHealth, joined me at @spc to talk about the journey from liquid biopsy to early cancer detection, what makes diagnostics such a difficult business, and how AI could help unlock new applications far beyond cancer.

AI is creating a Jevons paradox of ambition. The easier it gets to build, the more ambitious the things the best people decide to build. Feels like we’re watching this happen in real time at @spc .

Safety and alignment of "models" is the raging topic today. But the original "safety" debate for AI/MachineLearning was actually in autonomous vehicles! My first Waymo ride truly felt like a religious experience. It was mind-boggling that we could build technology that actually worked on real roads with all the challenges that entails. I thought the most interesting part of the talk yesterday was the extensive eval/testing infrastructure that Waymo has built out in order to build the confidence to release 2-ton robots traveling at 30mph through urban environments. It was awesome to host @dmitri_dolgov @spc yesterday. I learnt a lot myself and I am excited to release the full video soon.

We’re announcing Sentience out of closed beta today. Your Sentience is your digital twin. It looks, sounds, and writes like you, and it operates autonomously. This is our first milestone in our quest towards uploaded consciousness.

Today. SF. @Waymo CEO @dmitri_dolgov at SPC.

Much has been said about cybersecurity, alignment and responsible building. As the technology moves underneath us, more will be said! None of us have clairvoyant certainty about the future. What we do know, is that it'll be like nothing we've seen before. That's why we need people like @snsf sharing their beliefs, and view of what is critical! Really enjoyed having him at @spc_india to talk about all this, and why building the right thing, matters now more than ever! Full Minus One episode is out now, shared below.