Cursor and SpaceX have entered an agreement to co-develop coding and knowledge agent models together. With SpaceX having the right to acquire Cursor this year for $60B or pay them $10B instead. In coding–which is perhaps the path to general agents–being a top lab requires owning both the compute to train new models and capabilities Continue reading Cursor and SpaceX: In search of a complete loop…
Notes on the recent trend of Hire and License Out deals in AI Over the last year, a new breed of deal structure has emerged in AI: an alternative to acquisitions and hiring that shares traits of both yet isn’t quite either. Companies like Inflection, Character AI, Adept, Covariant and most recently Windsurf have used Continue reading The HALO Effect The post The HALO Effect appeared first on…
I’ve joined Sutter Hill Ventures to find and build companies with our next generation of EIRs and CEOs. Over the past several years of writing and working with founders I have been driven by the question of how our industry can best compound at creating companies that matter. What became clear is that the earliest Continue reading Joining Sutter Hill Ventures The post Joining Sutter Hill Ventures…
The shifting sands of tech IPOs If the IPO process is like a debutante ball, the top investment banks are akin to a finishing school. They help gussy up companies, teach them proper manners like how to do GAAP accounting, and bring them around to call on prospective investors and eventually debut to society. This Continue reading Narrative Distillation The post Narrative Distillation appeared…
If you follow my blog, then you likely follow Eugene Wei on twitter. Eugene and I have started a new video series, Closing the Loop. You can find it here on Youtube. Some of the topics include: Graph Design and the Limits of Social Graphs Unconstraining Emergent Creativity Decentralization, Creators, and Platforms The Power of Continue reading New video series, Closing the Loop The post New video…
How Figma and Canva are taking on Adobe—and winning In 2010, Photoshop was ubiquitous. Whether you were editing a photo, making a poster, or designing a website, it happened in Photoshop. Today, Adobe looks incredibly strong. They’ve had spectacular stock performance, thanks to clear-eyed management who’ve made bold bets that have paid off. Their transition Continue reading How to Eat an Elephant,…
In Formula 1 racing, you can win a world championship as a driver with one team but then not even make the top 10 without that team’s car and infrastructure. Venture can often feel like this, too. Many top performing VCs would struggle if they weren’t on their firm’s platform. And similarly, a far greater Continue reading The Mike Speiser Incubation Playbook The post The Mike Speiser Incubation…
Companies are a sequencing of loops. While it’s possible to stumble into an initial core loop that works, the companies that are successful in the long term are the ones that can repeatedly find the next loop. However, this evolution is poorly understood relative to its existential impact on a company’s trajectory. Figma is a Continue reading Why Figma Wins The post Why Figma Wins appeared first…
Every marketplace is unique. But every successful marketplace is unique in the same ways. Historically it s very hard to find a successful marketplace that wasn t built on an underutilized fixed asset. Airbnb is a canonical example of this. Someone has a guest bedroom. It s always there, a fixed asset. But it s unused and they make Continue reading Underutilized Fixed Assets The post Underutilized…
Recently sent some notes on aspects of Superhuman’s acquisition loops and business model that interested me to some friends. Since I often ask people to write and send me more memos, thought I’d clean up and share this example. This essay is heavily focused on growth loops, and assumes familiarity with them. If you are Continue reading Notes on Superhuman’s Acquisition Loops The post Notes on…