Proud to have this desk item in common with pg thanks to @zanehengsperger

Calling all mechanical, manufacturing, and industrial engineers in my network - our portfolio company @DiracInc is shaping the future of design, engineering, and manufacturing with BuildOS and hiring forward deployed manufacturing engineers to bring it to life with major enterprise companies. The team is backed by @foundersfund, @coatuemgmt, @TheCouncilCap, and already executing 7-figure deals with companies you know. Apply below to shape the future of your industry :) P.S. they work out of the Empire State Building, so that's pretty cool too

Proud to share that @TheCouncilCap was selected by 70+ of the leading LPs investing in emerging VC as one of the top firms they want to meet at RAISE Select. I'll be there on Oct 22 in the Presidio with 330+ family offices, fund of funds, institutional LPs, etc in attendance. Excited to join and share what's led to repeated successes in our portfolio and why we're so obsessed with First Builders 😎 It takes years to bake, and I appreciate now more than ever the LPs that believed in us from day one when we had no external validation. Think that's going to pay off 😉 If we haven't met yet and you'll be at @raiseconference, reach out!

Wire is out for our 7th investment out of Fund II: 🤖 robotics 🛠️ maintenance 🕸️ fleet operations 📍 hq outside of SF 🧑‍💻 First Builder founder (scaled eng org) 🤝 former coworker Can't wait to share more on this one!

love to see a founder giving major credit to their # 2. it's those first builders that extend the horizon for what's possible, sometimes even re-energizing the founders themselves! go @emiliemc

Congrats to @FlexSuperApp, our second unicorn in Fund I, on a $1.2B valuation and fresh $70M raised. Flex is an AI-native private banking platform for high net worth business owners. We received shares in Flex when they acquired one of our portfolio companies a couple of years back. It’s been nonstop growth ever since, with revenue in the nine-figures and growing 4x YoY. Zaid Rahman (@zaidrmn) is a machine and has assembled a stellar team along the way. We are so grateful to be on board for this ride.

My thoughts on the Neo video, having worked on spectacles v1 and spent a good chunk of my career in consumer electronics that either flopped or soared: I did find it awkward but not outright sexual, though it’s obvious in retrospect. And the article about the neo robot had a few uncalled for lines. But the biggest mistake of this video (other than glossing over obvious privacy concerns) was directly translating their engineering roadmap punch list to an advertising video with no storytelling. Dexterous functionality is a known large feat within consumer and industrial hardware teams. But the generalist consumer (luxury or not) doesn’t care. Videos like this will only attract early tech adopters within the already slimmer icp of luxury clients that can pay $20k for a robot. The problem with early tech adopters is they only want you while you’re hot. There needs to be another segment that’ll drive sustained growth and storytelling should speak to them. I see that Neo has other videos with this in mind, but the hands video felt off and like there was no creative direction beyond engineering providing a list of the technical challenges they have overcome. Then it’s even more awkward bc the robot understandably moves slow at this stage. Here’s what I would have done to highlight the unique capability of the hands: - read functionality list from eng - identify 1-2 key personas (aging parent, busy parent with little kids) - identify stories that naturally give robot chance to show off 5-6 of these skills (e.g. busy family night arriving in late after school and sports practice. But neo has already been setting table and folding laundry - includes picking, folding, placing, zipping, etc). - speed up the video a bit to make it less uncanny and put a disclaimer that robot moves slower irl That said, I’m sure Neo is doing just fine and loving all the attention today. Haters make you go viral! And it’s a great learning opportunity as they build. Plus maybe they secretly meant it as an investor demo for those that have the technical context.

Inside look at @noxmetals factory and why we invested at pre-seed ahead of the $11.5M seed round announced last week.

.@Gwynne_Shotwell is a First Builder™️ - High slope operator - entrepreneurial w/o founder title - joins ahead of obvious success - makes shit happen