The sun was free. They sold you SPF 50 and a vitamin D deficiency. Sleep was free. They sold you an app, a pill, and a wearable that tells you your sleep was bad. Walking was free. They sold you a treadmill, a fitness tracker, and a £180 pair of trainers. Fasting was free. They sold you meal replacement shakes and the anxiety that skipping breakfast would wreck your metabolism. Cold water was free. They sold you a £3,000 plunge barrel and a podcast episode about it. Silence was free. They sold you a meditation app with a premium tier. Animal fat was cheap. They sold you seed oils, then supplements to replace what the animal fat contained. Tallow was cheap. They sold you a seventeen-step skincare routine and a clinical trial proving your face needs ceramides. Meat was cheap. They are currently selling you the idea that you shouldn't eat it. The 20th century removed access to everything the body needs to function. The 21st century is selling it back, one subscription at a time. Your great-grandmother had none of the products. She had all of the things.

Growing up in Silicon Valley, I believed tech was meant to democratize opportunity and accelerate human progress. The early ethos of the Valley wasn’t just about building profitable products, but about shifting the trajectory of lives and societies. There was idealism, for sure, but also a serious belief that technical breakthroughs should serve human success. But somewhere along the way, parts of the industry traded vision for vanity. As capital flooded into tech, incentives shifted. Virality began to outpace value. The goalposts moved from solving hard, important problems to maximizing engagement, retention, and monetization. Today some of the brightest minds are pulled towards optimizing ad clicks and frictionless dopamine loops. Why? (Insert disclaimer: The issue isn’t the people). Innovation isn’t dead. (Insert disclaimer again: Many technologists are building remarkable human-centered tools.) It’s worth asking again and again: What is worth building? And who is it truly for?

The moment we started referring to companies who’ve raised at a billion dollar valuation as “billion dollar companies” we helped to shift the focus of startup founders from their customers to their investors. I prefer to call companies with a billion dollars in revenue “billion dollar companies”. In the first case - all it takes is an investor making a bet with someone else’s money. In the second, a billion dollars+ of value had to be delivered to customers. These are worlds apart.

[New] from a16z @speedrun: The Outsider founders are winning the AI B2B race we used to say founder x market fit was everything but in this AI wave, Outsider founders who are AI native are outmaneuvering their industry veteran competitors just look at @TennrOfficial (healthcare), @hebbia (finance), @happyrobot (logistics), @evelegalai (legal) & @DecagonAI (customer support)..... these are all Outsider founders w/ no prior experience in the verticals they now sell into so why is this? #1 - right now, AI technical excellency trumps industry expertise --> These founders combine AI fluency w/ exceptional problem solving skills to quickly map the inner workings of a vertical from an Outsiders perspective and how AI can automate that work --> many will bring on a "board of Insider advisors" early to help validate their approaches and leverage their rolodex #2 - new verticals w/out a scaled SaaS player are now in play --> Agentic AI products don’t just help workers become more efficient, they can take action and complete work autonomously --> Therefore companies can spend way more for these products as they don't just tap into IT budgets, they actually displace labor spend --> That means that offline verticals w/ historically small IT budgets and no vertical SaaS winners are now ripe for a venture scaled vertical AI disruptor = from food distribution to car dealerships to home services to agriculture, it will be Outsiders who will come in and automate the backoffice functions for these verticals #3 - the barriers for Outsiders to sell into the enterprise have dropped dramatically --> most companies have a tops-down mandate and dedicated budget to explore AI initiatives. They’re actively pulling new solutions into their organizations and open to experimenting with pilot partners --> for some products, where PLG and bottoms-up adoption makes sense, Outsiders can let their product and marketing strategies be their ticket into their buyer so, today, founder - market fit should be based on required skillsets to win in a space, not simply on tenure & domain expertise in a vertical here at @speedrun we’ve invested in teams of exceptional Outsiders such as @ArtifactOffcial (accounting), Anchr (food distribution), Bead (SOX compliance) + many more if you’re a team of Outsiders primed to disrupt a boring business, head to sr [dot] a16z [dot] com to apply for speedrun

If you want to get rich on X, it isn't going to be through creator revenue or meme coins. Instead, think about one subject matter that you know more about than anyone else in the world. It can be anything: plumbing, menswear, Indian food, furniture, social apps, whatever. Post one unexpected insight you picked from your experience in that area. Keep it under 5 sentences. Do this every day for 6 months. If you stick to it, we will promote your account to others. By the end, you will be recognized as the world's leading expert in that subject area and you can charge whatever you want for endorsements, your time, or whatever. And no one will be able to take that way from you.

llms will only get marginally better. the real edge is feeding them proprietary data. you got some? the next compounding curve is who controls the most unique data streams. founders that own those pipelines will define the next trillion-dollar companies.

We have built a re-entry capsule. And we’re doing a mid-air drop test to demonstrate our dynamics and landing capabilities, a key test before we launch it into space within next 12 months. RSVP to watch us live from Mission Control. We’re creating the @OpenAI moment for space, where anyone can develop solutions in space faster and cheaper.

Introducing your 2023 CSuite Digital Leadership Awards WINNERS! These amazing CEOs, thought leaders and influencers are the best of the best using digital channels to share ideas, drive business results and even change the world. Congratulations to all! bit.ly/447Sis3