Silicon Slopes retweeted
From Silicon Slopes to Silicon Docks, Utah and Ireland have a lot of opportunities to work together.
At Google’s European headquarters in Dublin, we met with leaders from Google, Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, and the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland to discuss trade, investment, AI, and workforce development.
We want more Irish companies to see Utah as a gateway to the U.S. market while helping Utah businesses find new opportunities in Europe.
Thank you to Google for hosting us!
Silicon Slopes retweeted
A great day downtown with the Salt Lake City Chapter of the Institute of Internal Auditors for our Chief Audit Executive conference!
Thank you to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for hosting us and giving us an inside look at their audit operation. I learned so much from their auditors and the other chief audit executives in attendance.
I always appreciate the chance to exchange ideas with people who share a commitment to accountability and helping their organizations improve. Heading home with fresh ideas and plenty to put into practice!
Adminify Secures Gray Line Partners Funding to Advance AI for Franchising and Multi- Location Organizations
utah.vc/p/adminify-secures-f…
Silicon Slopes retweeted
Lots of energy in agentic payments right now centers on how to properly constrain the agent in its use of payment credentials and authority.
But as time goes on, in the hierarchy of trust, I think my personal agent will be at the top—not my wallet, bank/issuer, or the payment network (and obviously not the other party to a given transaction).
The main reason is that I will trust my agent to exercise discretion more than I trust my financial partners to have the kinds of constraints that don’t get in the way of my agent doing what I want them to do.
The agent will be better at protecting me from bad counterparties and from myself than anybody else.
This assumes that the agent is good at what they do but that’s where the tech world is putting the most effort, so I suspect they will be (and indeed already are) very good.
Silicon Slopes retweeted
Dear UI Developers: When you're implementing a 2FA sequence that involves a security code, please ensure the input box automatically gets focus. Please? Pretty please? With sugar on top? #identity
Silicon Slopes retweeted
Entrepreneurship is trading years of your life to find out which of your ideas were good.
Founder mode, all day, every day.
Replying to @paulg
This kind of transformation is a good example of founder mode. A hired CEO wouldn't have the moral authority (or probably care enough) to ignore existing revenue streams and refocus the company on AI.
Silicon Slopes retweeted
Lassonde New Venture Development Center grant applications are due Friday, Oct. 23! Graduate students work alongside faculty inventors, industry professionals, and entrepreneurs while gaining valuable real-world experience. lassonde.utah.edu/calendar/?…
Silicon Slopes retweeted
Our pioneer ancestors didn’t let seemingly impossible challenges stand in their way. They found innovative ways to move water in the desert and build thriving communities. Saving the Great Salt Lake will require that same kind of bold thinking.
Texas Instruments has put the silicon in Silicon Slopes.
Could hardware power Utah’s next tech success story
AI is driving demand for hardware. @TXInstruments has committed $11B to a Lehi chip campus, while energy storage company @torusrev is “bursting at the seams.”
Discover Utah’s hardware opportunity.
Silicon Slopes retweeted
⚠️Cybersecurity Month Reminder⚠️
Most people know not to share passwords. But here are a few fraud-prevention tips scammers hope you don't know:
🔹 Slow down when you're in a hurry. Scammers create urgency because rushed people miss red flags.
🔹 Don't trust a caller ID. Fraudsters can make calls and texts appear to come from legitimate organizations.
🔹 Never use a phone number provided in a suspicious text. If you're concerned, find the number yourself from a trusted source.
🔹 Avoid answering security questions out loud if someone calls you unexpectedly. Small details can help scammers build a profile of you.
🔹 If someone wants you to move money to "protect" it, stop immediately. That's a major red flag.
🚨And remember: America First Credit Union will never ask for your PIN, password, online banking credentials, or verification codes.
Staying safe online isn't about being suspicious of everything. It's about pausing long enough to verify.
Silicon Slopes retweeted
We are closely monitoring the flash flooding in Hurricane. Our hearts are with the families whose homes and livelihoods have been impacted.
Please follow all evacuation orders and local emergency guidance. We’re grateful to the first responders working to keep Utahns safe.
🚨 BREAKING: MAJOR FLASH FLOODING IN HURRICANE, UTAH
A dangerous flood wave surged through Hurricane today, forcing evacuations along Gould Wash as fast-moving water threatened homes and RVs.
Officials ordered residents near Gould Wash and the WillowWind RV Park to evacuate immediately as flash flooding moved downstream through the city. Power was also shut off to several townhome communities and the RV park.
More than 100 homes and RVs have reportedly been damaged, and an emergency has been declared in Hurricane.
Video: Brian Nagler
Marc Andreessen says individuals are adopting AI faster than organizations, and startup formation is going to skyrocket as a result:
"I think many companies are not adopting AI while their employees are. And their employees are not necessarily telling the management what's happening. I'm gonna guess every single person listening to this podcast right now is thinking, 'Oh yeah, that's what I'm doing.'"
"There's something about AI right now where it's much easier for the individual to adopt than it is the institution."
"Some of those individuals are gonna figure out... it's now easier than ever for me to start my own business. So I think startup formation is gonna skyrocket from here."
@pmarca
Today, a16z Crypto is becoming a16z Frontier.
Since joining a16z in 2013, @cdixon has focused on technologies that look futuristic well before they reach the mainstream. Those themes led to investments in Oculus, Skydio, Zipline, Coinbase, Solana, and Uniswap.
Frontier expands that mandate beyond crypto to back "outer planet" founders who are building new technologies and creating markets that may take years to develop.
Chris joins @pmarca, @bhorowitz, and @eriktorenberg to discuss why crypto has become part of the broader tech landscape, why Frontier fills a hole in the firm's architecture, and why they'd rather be too early than too late.
They also get into why the gap between AI-native startups and incumbents is the widest Marc has ever seen, how AI could pull forward 20 years of frontier technology, why stablecoins may become the way AI agents pay each other, how AI is breaking the internet's business model, and why today's 18-year-olds are about to become superhumans.
0:50 Introducing a16z Frontier
2:49 Smartphone parts to drones and VR
4:47 Backing the "outer planets"
7:11 Good ideas that look like bad ideas
10:43 The JP Morgan photo in Marc's office
15:13 Good tech ideas eventually work
16:53 AI may pull tech 20 years forward
18:18 The widest AI gap Marc's ever seen
22:06 Workers adopt AI before companies do
26:32 Old use cases vs. AI-native ones
30:08 Beyond "product manager brain"
34:45 AI can reverse engineer any hardware
38:23 The case for open source AI
46:36 How AI breaks the internet's model
49:11 VR, homebrew hacking, multiplayer AI
54:00 If you're 18, study "modern alchemy"
YouTube: youtu.be/-9XQMHhpypc
Not an offer or solicitation. None of the information herein should be taken as investment advice; Some of the companies mentioned are portfolio companies of a16z. Please see a16z.com/disclosures for more information. A list of investments made by a16z is available at a16z.com/portfolio.
Silicon Slopes retweeted
A student working through a tough lesson. A new manager prepping for a big client talk. With Human-First Digital Twins from @PraxisAI, both can get real-time guidance from experts they trust, right inside @Canvas_By_Inst.
Learn more: bit.ly/4sciLlq
#CanvasLMS #InstructurePartner #EdTech
Silicon Slopes retweeted
Excited to welcome Aaron Skonnard (@skonnard) to @joinLeland's Board of Directors!
As many of you know, Aaron was the Co-Founder and CEO of @pluralsight, a technology workforce development company he built from zero to hundreds of millions in revenue and took public.
Aaron and I first met because he and his family were customers of Leland while his daughter was applying to college. I’ll never forget my first conversation with Aaron because everything just clicked. He had been operating for decades in and around this world, and when I told him about our vision, he could see it immediately.
Since that day, I’ve spent a lot of time with Aaron. Here’s what I feel every time:
1. His depth of experience in our space and in scaling a business is endlessly helpful
2. His humility given that experience is so refreshing
3. His drive to win AND be a great dad, friend, and all around person is exactly the example I want in my life
I couldn't think of anyone better to help us shape the next chapter of the business.
Thank you, Aaron. Excited to build the future with you.
Silicon Slopes retweeted
Utah companies looking to do business in Europe have a valuable partner in Ireland. Many of the technology and life science companies operating in Utah already have a European base here. Our trade mission is focused on opening more doors for Utah businesses and building research partnerships.
I met with Irish Prime Minister @MichealMartinTD to discuss how we can build on that relationship. We also talked about issues that matter to families in both places: keeping kids safe online and putting homeownership within reach.
AI is transforming a great many powerful SaaS businesses
This is what it looks like when it *really* hits
We built a $150M ARR business twice.
The first time took 8 years. The second took 2.5.
Today, Podium crossed $150M in AI annual recurring revenue.
Three years ago, we already had a great software business. Well over $100M in revenue, tens of thousands of customers, and a product we'd spent nearly a decade building.
And we decided to start over.
The business was performing well. But we believed AI was going to fundamentally change the software industry and make much of traditional software obsolete.
As a founder, you pour your life into what you're building. An insane amount of time, sacrifice, and effort. The hard part is not getting too attached to it.
When we started building our first AI agents, we had to confront the possibility that much of what we'd built might not be that valuable in the future. That's a tough pill to swallow.
But we also realized those same 10 years had put us in a unique position to take advantage of what AI could do for our customers.
Instead of protecting what we'd spent a decade building, we decided to bet the future of the company on AI employees that actually do the work for our customers.
We massively underestimated what we'd signed up for.
We ended up building entirely new operating systems for the industries we serve, from the AI agents all the way down to the systems of record. Now customers run their entire businesses on Podium.
Reinventing our product wasn't even the hardest part. We had to reinvent how the entire company operated.
When you've been running a company for over a decade, the operational inertia is incredibly powerful. We had to rethink how we build products, how we sell, how we serve customers, and how we run the business.
We effectively started a second startup inside an already successful company. And we're still at the very beginning.
Today, we have 20,000 AI agents working for our customers. They've helped generate more than $13 billion in revenue for those businesses. And we're barely scratching the surface of what AI will be able to do for them.
And we've done all of this while becoming profitable and generating free cash flow. We're building Podium to be around for decades.
Huge credit to our team for having the guts to make this bet and the ability to actually pull it off. We still have a long way to go and tons of problems to solve, but it's so damn fun to be winning when the opportunity ahead is this big.
In the age of AI, you can either disrupt your own company or wait for somebody else to do it.
I'd rather do it ourselves.

































