
investor & helper of founders | ex physics @imperialcollege š¬š§ Thinking about how we live and work. Occasionally writing at https://xitter.cf/t.co/bR6oZunjWY
London, England
Joined July 2016
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[New post] āChoosing a VC: The stuff people don't talk aboutā š¤«
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Iāve discussed fundraising with 100s of founders and thereās a bunch of topics that often come up in 1-to-1s but still seem opaque.
deepka.substack.com/p/choosiā¦
Whatās covered :š
Deepka retweeted
Incredible headline. Hats off to everyone who approved it.
Version of AI tool too powerful for public released to public bbc.in/4xfGSlq
Deepka retweeted
If you canāt handle londonmaxxing in November then you donāt deserve londonmaxxing in April
Deepka retweeted
Judging by my tl there is a growing gap in understanding of AI capability.
The first issue I think is around recency and tier of use. I think a lot of people tried the free tier of ChatGPT somewhere last year and allowed it to inform their views on AI a little too much. This is a group of reactions laughing at various quirks of the models, hallucinations, etc. Yes I also saw the viral videos of OpenAI's Advanced Voice mode fumbling simple queries like "should I drive or walk to the carwash". The thing is that these free and old/deprecated models don't reflect the capability in the latest round of state of the art agentic models of this year, especially OpenAI Codex and Claude Code.
But that brings me to the second issue. Even if people paid $200/month to use the state of the art models, a lot of the capabilities are relatively "peaky" in highly technical areas. Typical queries around search, writing, advice, etc. are *not* the domain that has made the most noticeable and dramatic strides in capability. Partly, this is due to the technical details of reinforcement learning and its use of verifiable rewards. But partly, it's also because these use cases are not sufficiently prioritized by the companies in their hillclimbing because they don't lead to as much $$$ value. The goldmines are elsewhere, and the focus comes along.
So that brings me to the second group of people, who *both* 1) pay for and use the state of the art frontier agentic models (OpenAI Codex / Claude Code) and 2) do so professionally in technical domains like programming, math and research. This group of people is subject to the highest amount of "AI Psychosis" because the recent improvements in these domains as of this year have been nothing short of staggering. When you hand a computer terminal to one of these models, you can now watch them melt programming problems that you'd normally expect to take days/weeks of work. It's this second group of people that assigns a much greater gravity to the capabilities, their slope, and various cyber-related repercussions.
TLDR the people in these two groups are speaking past each other. It really is simultaneously the case that OpenAI's free and I think slightly orphaned (?) "Advanced Voice Mode" will fumble the dumbest questions in your Instagram's reels and *at the same time*, OpenAI's highest-tier and paid Codex model will go off for 1 hour to coherently restructure an entire code base, or find and exploit vulnerabilities in computer systems. This part really works and has made dramatic strides because 2 properties: 1) these domains offer explicit reward functions that are verifiable meaning they are easily amenable to reinforcement learning training (e.g. unit tests passed yes or no, in contrast to writing, which is much harder to explicitly judge), but also 2) they are a lot more valuable in b2b settings, meaning that the biggest fraction of the team is focused on improving them. So here we are.
Deepka retweeted
The most visible tech companies are increasingly casting themselves as the hero in their own story, and in doing so, risk becoming the villain in everyone elseās.
Apple was never the hero - the creative misfit was.
Nike was never the hero - the everyday athlete was.
Youtube was never the hero - the creator was.
Airbnb was never the hero - the host was.
Stripe was never the hero - the developer was.
Figma was never the hero - the designer was.
The best brands make someone else the protagonist.
When you cast yourself as the hero, you turn your users into NPCs. The relationship becomes transactional, or worse: predatory (weāll replace you, just give us time).
This is why we (individual companies, and the tech industry at large) need better stories about the future. Stories that arenāt centered on ARR, record-breaking valuations, circular dealmaking. Stories that are anchored in people, potential and a vision for the future that goes beyond numbers.
Right now tech is mostly talking to tech, so weāre getting away with a lot. But thatās not sustainable. Itās time to think a few steps ahead.
Deepka retweeted
I just left a $3B startups office in London who moved here a month ago
Iām so bullish.
> @vercelās recent meet up that had people queuing round the block
> @openclaw and @OpenAI event at @imperialcollege with 900 students >Weāve had @DecagonAI, @clay, @RogoAI all open London offices in the past few months alone
Deepka retweeted
berghain for people with claude pro plan
Replying to @bebackinamo
the queue for tonights london AI meetup says everything. this city is buzzing.
Deepka retweeted
The perceived cost of standing up for what you believe, even if itās against the ācurrent thingā is much lower than you might think.
Most people arenāt insane. They want liberal democracy. They want free market capitalism. But you have to speak up so they know theyāre not alone.
Deepka retweeted
Torsten, you know better than anyone this budget did nothing for growth.
You spent Ā£16bn on redistribution and increased headroom by ~Ā£10bn. People are angry because youāve made growth your central mission - then delivered a budget that undermines it.
The redistribution isnāt even defensible. You originally scrapped Winter Fuel Allowance because it wasnāt means-tested and transferred wealth from young to old. You cut PIP because itās the most abused part of the benefits system. Thatās where the money went. It doesnāt support growth. It doesnāt redistribute effectively. It just looks bad.
On scaleups⦠as a founder, I can tell you categorically these measures wonāt move the needle. The EMI limit increase doesnāt even cover real scaleups. The three-year stamp duty exemption is still worse than the US, where thereās no stamp duty at all. You should have exempted all venture-backed companies listing on the LSE from stamp duty entirely.
You backed away from the Tech ISA. You know it would have driven investment and growth.
The one thing that could materially drive growth is pushing the BBB to anchor top-tier growth funds - but that was already a multi-year commitment. Lean into it. Push the BBB to anchor the best US and UK funds aggressively.
But the real reason people are angry isnāt just policy. Itās the chaos you created in the run-up. The constant leaking⦠exit taxes, wealth taxes⦠your ideas. You were pushing them. Theyāve caused real economic and reputational damage to Labour.
You had exceptional goodwill from founders, business leaders, sensible centrists. Youāre burning through it with poor communications and a reluctance to tackle hard problems.
We need this country growing again. Itās the only route to better living standards. Stop trying to appease Labour backbenchers.
Start making the hard choices that will actually get the UK moving.
I was lucky enough to repay my students loans quickly. The fact that rates on current loans donāt track the market is diabolical.
Another weight on the young who are getting kicked left right and centre.
Deepka retweeted
1/ Raise your ambition: āItās easier to rally people, hires or investors, around bold ideas. Building a supersonic jet becomes easier than accounting software. So raise your ambitionā
2/ Build for users you understand: for PostHog, that's critical but committed developers
Being taught by Michele was one of the highlights of my time at Imperial.
Amazing appointment and letās be honest, āAstronomer Royalā is an insanely cool job title.
š Congratulations to @ImperialPhysics's Professor Michele Dougherty, the next Astronomer Royal and first woman to hold the title!
First created in 1675 to aid sea navigation, the honorary role is appointed by the King to provide advice and expertise š½
imperial.ac.uk/news/266833/pā¦
































