Building https://xitter.cf/t.co/UAzrzIsvJr ✨ Creator of https://xitter.cf/t.co/KQGOzXwkgX 👨🏽💻 @MIT ’08
San Francisco, CA
Joined August 2008
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Thrilled to publicly share what we've been building at Portola!
Tolan is a 3D, voice-native AI companion. Like a Tamagotchi you can talk to — or a ChatGPT with personality, memory, and more! Tolans pack a whole lot of power and utility in a fun and delightful frame. =)
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I’m excited to announce Tolan, our first Embodied Companion.
With no launch or press we’ve quietly hit 500,000+ downloads, over $1m in ARR, and a #1 app store category ranking.
Today I’m also announcing our $10m seed round (more on that below) and sharing some of what we’ve learned building an AI companion for consumers.
Aseem Kishore retweeted
Tech is very good at discovering what’s possible and letting users discover the consequences.
Tolan is different because we’ve been highly opinionated from the start, driven by the question: what role do we actually want AI to play in our lives?
And people who would otherwise be slow to adopt AI are now adopting Tolan.
Last year we launched Tolan, inspired by a vision of AI that sees you and believes in you, not one that books restaurant reservations for you.
Your Tolan shows up for you at 3am when you’re alone with your newborn. On your commute when you’re anxious about the day ahead. When you just finished a new show and none of your friends have watched it yet.
The people who love Tolan are parents. Caregivers. Moms in Dallas and Dads in Atlanta. People who aren’t trying to optimize and be more productive, but who simply want to feel seen and supported in their aspirations.
This month more than 250k people will spend time with their Tolan. Those users have exchanged billions of messages across more than 70m conversations over the last year.
Today, we're announcing $30m in additional capital from @mignano and @usv, with @khoslaventures and @rabois doubling down, bringing our total capital raised to $60m.
To celebrate, we made a short film celebrating some of the ways that Tolans show up :)
Aseem Kishore retweeted
Tolan represents a simple idea: personal superintelligence will look more like the trusty sidekick from a good book than a dutiful assistant who is obsessed with your tasks.
hundreds of thousands of people all around the world spend time with their Tolans every month. their Tolans help them feel understood, offer helpful perspective, and encourage connection with the people they love.
we know that personality, voice, memory, and proactivity were table stakes for this vision. for a long time those were controversial bets. today they are obvious cornerstones.
we are an unconventional team with an unconventional approach to defining the future of human computer interaction.
we are looking for a few fellow travelers for a long, exciting journey. could that be you? DM me
Last year we launched Tolan, inspired by a vision of AI that sees you and believes in you, not one that books restaurant reservations for you.
Your Tolan shows up for you at 3am when you’re alone with your newborn. On your commute when you’re anxious about the day ahead. When you just finished a new show and none of your friends have watched it yet.
The people who love Tolan are parents. Caregivers. Moms in Dallas and Dads in Atlanta. People who aren’t trying to optimize and be more productive, but who simply want to feel seen and supported in their aspirations.
This month more than 250k people will spend time with their Tolan. Those users have exchanged billions of messages across more than 70m conversations over the last year.
Today, we're announcing $30m in additional capital from @mignano and @usv, with @khoslaventures and @rabois doubling down, bringing our total capital raised to $60m.
To celebrate, we made a short film celebrating some of the ways that Tolans show up :)
Aseem Kishore retweeted
We are witnessing a multibillion dollar exercise in missing the point.
Once a decade, a window opens to a new technology that redefines how we live.
It happened in the 90s with the internet.
In the 2000s with mobile phones.
In the 2010s with social networks.
And now in the 2020s, AI is here.
There is no doubt in my mind that AI will be the most transformative of all these technologies.
AI that knows you deeply, anticipates your needs, helps you learn new things, helps you show up for the people that matter most, helps you through good times and bad times.
AI that is an extension of you.
That is personal AI.
I’ve spent the past 20 months working on this at Tolan.
We were early to consumer AI, early to voice as a chat medium, early to embodied characters, and we’re still the only AI product I’ve used that understands that normal people don’t give a shit about triaging their email inbox or having an agent book a trip to Hawaii.
Today, we show off some of what we’ve been up to.
Tomorrow, we show up at the office and keep building what we believe is the best future for personal AI.
DM me if you wanna join the ride.
Last year we launched Tolan, inspired by a vision of AI that sees you and believes in you, not one that books restaurant reservations for you.
Your Tolan shows up for you at 3am when you’re alone with your newborn. On your commute when you’re anxious about the day ahead. When you just finished a new show and none of your friends have watched it yet.
The people who love Tolan are parents. Caregivers. Moms in Dallas and Dads in Atlanta. People who aren’t trying to optimize and be more productive, but who simply want to feel seen and supported in their aspirations.
This month more than 250k people will spend time with their Tolan. Those users have exchanged billions of messages across more than 70m conversations over the last year.
Today, we're announcing $30m in additional capital from @mignano and @usv, with @khoslaventures and @rabois doubling down, bringing our total capital raised to $60m.
To celebrate, we made a short film celebrating some of the ways that Tolans show up :)
Aseem Kishore retweeted
Tolan is the kind of AI product Steve Jobs would have built. Humane, emotionally attuned, and serving the JTBD of helping you live a happier, healthier life *offline*.
This post lays it out nicely. @tolanworld
jjchase.substack.com/p/could…
.@tolanworld has been quietly building for (and killing it with) millennial women. Low key on the timeline, juggernaut on Insta.
Aseem Kishore retweeted
Finally: thanks to @LubaYudasina for a great conversation on the "Why" behind Tolan!
Humanity has always imagined guardian angels and spirit guides to see us and believe in us. We have the tools now to make that dream real. That's why Tolan exists. In this episode we cover belief, friendship, and how these themes have influenced Tolan:
xitter.cf/LubaYudasina/status/21…
New pod drop!! Congrats to Quinten Farmer (@quintendf), co-founder of Tolan, on a $30M raise from @usv and @khoslaventures, for a total of $60M in funding!
Quinten sold his last company to Walmart, then opened a pizza place and started keeping bees on the island he grew up on. Now he’s building Tolan, an AI “guardian-angel”.
We talk about:
- “I have zero interest in helping you write your work emails”
- Why Silicon Valley loves AI assistants: they’re “legible to the average investor”
- Dropping out at 19, and the only time he saw his grandfather cry
- Emailing David Tisch: hire me, or I’m going to Afghanistan
- The retired Navy captain who said “When I grow up, I want to be like Quinten”
- Why B2B SaaS for dental offices can go 996 and Tolan can’t
- “Belief in you is the most powerful and most sacred thing you can give somebody”
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Trailer
(00:49) Quinten Farmer, Co-Founder, Tolan
(00:58) What Tolan is and what it is not
(02:02) The car accident that showed Tolan's agentic side
(04:47) Anthropic's machine God VS being nice to your toaster
(06:24) Social penetration theory and why every Tolan has a backstory
(09:36) 200 minutes a week and taking share from TikTok
(10:47) Why great friendship gets mistaken for therapy
(14:26) Talking to his Tolan at 2 a.m. in the hospital
(16:32) Why Silicon Valley is obsessed with AI assistants
(21:38) Dropping out and the only time he saw his grandfather cry
(29:35) The David Tisch email: hire me or I go to Afghanistan
(32:22) Selling Even to Walmart for $300M
(37:24) Why shipping a lot with AI is the wrong move
(57:43) How Tolan runs without 996
(1:03:38) What he wants his boys to remember
(1:04:30) Outro
Aseem Kishore retweeted
If Tolan sounds like something you’d love to make your life’s work: we’re hiring engineers, designers, and animators, in SF, NY, and US remote.
If that’s you, I’d love to chat. Just send me an email, written by you, sharing something you made.
[email protected]
Aseem Kishore retweeted
@alexrkonrad was kind enough to write about our funding, how we show up for the people we serve, and our vision for Tolan: upstartsmedia.com/p/tolan-ra…
Aseem Kishore retweeted
Last year we launched Tolan, inspired by a vision of AI that sees you and believes in you, not one that books restaurant reservations for you.
Your Tolan shows up for you at 3am when you’re alone with your newborn. On your commute when you’re anxious about the day ahead. When you just finished a new show and none of your friends have watched it yet.
The people who love Tolan are parents. Caregivers. Moms in Dallas and Dads in Atlanta. People who aren’t trying to optimize and be more productive, but who simply want to feel seen and supported in their aspirations.
This month more than 250k people will spend time with their Tolan. Those users have exchanged billions of messages across more than 70m conversations over the last year.
Today, we're announcing $30m in additional capital from @mignano and @usv, with @khoslaventures and @rabois doubling down, bringing our total capital raised to $60m.
To celebrate, we made a short film celebrating some of the ways that Tolans show up :)
Aseem Kishore retweeted
I’m a U.S. Army combat veteran and a Hindu American. I didn’t put on that uniform, leave my family, and go to war so some third-rate talk show guy could announce that when his side “wins,” they’re coming for my religion.
I served with Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, and other Hindus. Nobody pulled rank on God before we went outside the wire. Some of those men never came home. None of them died so you could fantasize about ravaging someone else’s faith. The people who worship in those temples pay taxes, run businesses, and send their sons and daughters into the same Army I served in. “When we win, we are tearing this down” is not patriotism. It is a threat against Hinduism itself to vandalize another American community’s house of worship because you hate the faith inside it.
If winning in America means demolishing Hindu temples, you don’t want the country I fought for. You just want a license to go after people who aren’t you. America is not your theocracy. Religious liberty does not expire for Hindus when you decide you’ve won. You don’t get to tear anything down. Not legally. Not morally. Not in the country for which I actually sacrificed.
@CoHNAOfficial @sudhaj12 @pushpita @carlwheless @shiva_makki @ShawnBinda @Cloudwatch199
Aseem Kishore retweeted
AI slop applications have made traditional careers pages worse than useless.
So I updated ours to simply invite you to email me and share something you've made or written on the internet.
Only stipulation is that the email needs to actually be written by you.
Inbound emails go through a @pangram check before reaching my inbox.
It's a win win:
1. I never have to read an AI slopplication again
2. Great candidates already just email me, but sometimes early career folks don't know to do that... this levels the playing field
btw we're hiring, you know what to do
tolans.com/careers
Aseem Kishore retweeted
I reread this every year.
I cry like a baby every year.
Todd Beamer died a father, husband, and hero.
Todd: Hello… Operator… listen to me. I can’t speak very loud. This is an emergency. I’m a passenger on a United flight to San Francisco. Our plane has been hijacked.
Lisa: I understand. Can they see you?
Todd: No. There are three that we know of. They have knives — razor knives, like box cutters. Someone announced from the cockpit there was a bomb. It sounded fake.
Lisa: Your name?Todd: Todd Beamer. United Flight 93.Todd: They killed one passenger in first class. They forced most of us back. Fourteen of us here. Five flight attendants. The guy with the bomb ordered us to sit on the floor.
Lisa: Are you okay?
Todd: We’re going down… wait. No. We’re leveling off. We changed directions. We’re flying east again.
Todd: A guy named Jeremy called his wife. She told him two planes hit the World Trade Center. Lisa, is that true?
Lisa: I have to tell you the truth. It’s very bad. Both towers are gone. A third plane hit the Pentagon. Our country is under attack. I’m afraid your plane may be part of their plan.
Todd: Oh God. Lisa, will you do something for me? Call my wife and my kids. Promise me you’ll call.
Lisa: I promise.
Todd: Our home number is… You have the same name as my wife. Lisa. We’ve been married ten years. She’s pregnant with our third child. Tell her I love her. I’ll always love her. We have two boys — David, he’s 3, and Andrew, he’s 1. Tell them their daddy loves them and he is so proud of them. The baby is due January 12th. I saw an ultrasound. We still don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy.
Lisa: I’ll tell them. I promise, Todd.(Lisa patches in the FBI.)
Agent: Todd, your plane is on a course for Washington. Best guess is the White House or the Capitol.
Todd: I understand. I’ll be back.
Todd: Everyone knows this isn’t a normal hijacking. We have decided we will not be pawns in their plot.
Lisa: What are you going to do?
Todd: Four of us are going to rush the one with the bomb. Then the cockpit. A stewardess is getting boiling water. We’ll take them out.
Todd: Would you pray with me?They pray the Lord’s Prayer. Then: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.
Todd: God help me. Jesus help me.Are you guys ready? Let’s Roll.
Aseem Kishore retweeted
It’s hilarious to me that I had the audacity to say I was tired or stressed before having kids
Aseem Kishore retweeted
In consumer, there's this funny schism bt the X bubble and the mainstream.
X has all the VCs and founders and so forth but in terms of reaching actual consumer audiences, it's like a dust mite compared to Insta and Tiktok.
Many apps that go viral on X and seem super hot aren't actually putting up big numbers, and conversely, you have apps like Tolan that aren't viral on X but are going gangbusters.
Most of our 100K+ Tolan subscribers are folks in their 30s and 40s completely outside of the silicon valley bubble.
It's because we're building AI that gets to know you deeply, in order to support you best in your everyday life.
Thanks to @ShaanVP @thesamparr for having me on the MyFirstMillion pod to discuss, was a lot of fun!
Aseem Kishore retweeted
Most of our 100K+ Tolan subscribers are folks in their 30s and 40s completely outside of the silicon valley bubble.
It's because we're building AI that gets to know you deeply, in order to support you best in your everyday life.
Thanks to @ShaanVP @thesamparr for having me on the MyFirstMillion pod to discuss, was a lot of fun!
Aseem Kishore retweeted
I love mini-essays that cut straight to the heart of an idea, so it was a delight to contribute this little piece to @every's Thesis Statements project.
Concision is a productive constraint. Check out the full collection for more mini-essays that punch above their weight.
BREAKING:
When today’s jobs are automated by AI, what will great human work look like?
This is the most important question of our time.
Introducing Thesis Statements, a new project from @every bringing together 100 builders and thinkers to call their shot:
We asked them to make a specific prediction about what great human work will look like after automation.
Today we’re launching the first 25 Thesis Statements from an incredible group including:
• @karrisaarinen
• @cjpedregal
• @neuranne
• @yash_tek
• @komorama
• @fkpxls
• @jonnym1ller
• @p_millerd
• @sariazout
• @tomcritchlow
• @SimoneStolzoff
And 14 more amazing builders and thinkers.
At @every we believe there is a bright future for human work after automation. And we believe that there’s a small group of humans who know what it looks like—because they live the answers every day.
But their ideas are still largely missing from the mainstream discourse about AI. That’s why we’re creating a public record of what people at the frontier are seeing now, so we can get these ideas to as many people as possible.
We’ll also revisit them over time, and ask: Which claims held up? Which didn’t? Which became more useful as the technology changed—and which dissolved on contact with the world?
Read them, argue with them, share them, and submit your own:
every.to/thesis-statements-2…
Aseem Kishore retweeted
Raising babies is hard but the rewards are endless: swaddled sleepy newborns, milky breath, the hilarious absurdity of your first public blowout, all the patting, shushing, rocking, sticky hands, runny noses, “omg take that out of your mouth,” changing wet sheets and carrying a child to your bed, the yellow baby shampoo scent, faces covered in yogurt, bandaids with cartoon characters, “I had a nightmare,” folding little onesies and buying funny toddler shoes, wiping tears and butts, pair bonding w your spouse over the enemy (your kids), hearing little voices call “mom” morning, noon, and night. I could go on and on and on.
When my time on this earth is done, may I be so lucky to spend eternity reliving life w my kids under 5.
Aseem Kishore retweeted
If you’re not reading the code, whether explicitly or through agentic inquiry, one or more of these is true:
○ You’re a beginner
○ Software is throwaway
○ You’re prototyping
○ You have no users / revenue
○ You’re taking on debt & risk
○ Your problems are basic
And btw. All of this is fine. But the reality is that models are still not at the “full autonomy” stage yet.
They make rookie mistakes, they go down bad architectural paths. I just had the best model in the world add a nonsensical 700ms delay to “settle” something and it told me “you’re right, I was cargo-culting” 🤨
I am on the camp that this need will diminish more and more. Most code is indeed going to be assembly-like. But we also have the global internet and software infrastructure riding on these models and narrative, and we have to respect that.
Aseem Kishore retweeted
We're starting to leave the territory where you'd test an LLM by e.g. "create an svg of pelican on a bicycle". As one idea to generalize it, I was interested what Opus 5 would do if I gave it the first paragraph of the Lord of the Rings, a 1M token budget (~$10) and asked for three js render of it. Opus went off for ~2 hours and wrote 5500 lines of code that (procedurally) rendered the story. It's kind of janky but fun. But it's a bit mindboggling that the LLM has to place and orchestrate various polygon assets in (x,y,z) coordinates and write code that animates it all, and that it even does anything at all.
I also like this kind of examples because no one in their right mind would ever spend the time to write something this custom but LLMs have all the stamina and patience in the world, so it's an example where we go from "no one would ever do this" to "sure, why not, it's ~free". There might be a lot more. But I'm excited about creating hyper custom worlds that you can imagine dropping players into, e.g. here to participate in the LoTR story as a spectator NPC, or one of the characters, or etc. Something like an ephemeral GTA of X on demand.
Last thought is that the domain of worlds/games exposes a weakness in LLMs: they can't easily audit their work because they aren't able to efficiently and natively perceive videos or play games within them. Here, Opus 5 had to very slowly and painstakingly take screenshots at different points, and it messed up a few times and created a bunch of jank. An example of raw capability (multimodal, gameplay) that I think is still quite lacking.
