Speed is the most important moat in tech. Yesterday I said every vertical AI company will fail. It's because models can do things today that weren't possible 3 months ago. Companies can make a lot of money building on that edge. Adding harnessing, evals, application logic, and other guardrails will allow you to live on the cutting edge. But in a few years, models will eat all of that harnessing, and any differentiation you've created is gone. So as everyone discusses moats, I think the most important one is the build a business that gets better with the models. Meaning that you ride that cutting edge -- which requires speed. The comfort of "focus" is gone in a world where everyone has to do everything. You used to be able to build a moat around complexity, and complexity compounded with focus. That will kill you in 2026+

Vertical AI startups are all going to fail. It shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the technology and the pace of progress. Remember Jasper AI? When they were founded, they were on the cutting edge, so they were valuable. But 3 years later and what WAS the cutting edge is no longer even a full feature of an otherwise sellable product. The way to build a company in 2026 is to orient around the cutting edge. Build a machine to stay on the cutting edge -- or better yet, to push it further. Every decision we make at @tenex_labs is to optimize toward that.

I think this is the best "company vision essay" ever written @elonmusk gets credit for sleeping on factory floors, but this is why his company's succeed Every founder should read this to become a better storyteller (sales, fundraising, anything)

Hiring a founding AI engineer for my new vertical AI company. - ~$10m in seed funding - NYC based (5 days in office) - Disrupting a massive, legacy industry - Mid to high 7 figures of demand in the pipeline DM me with the most interesting/impressive thing you've built to apply

I always talk about single-player and multi-player AI. Single-Player is a chatbox. Multi-Player is an agent. Agents automate processes, they automate work, and they improve businesses. Bootcamps are our way of getting our clients from zero to agent-first in 5 days. We've done bootcamps with some of the largest enterprises in the world -- we're excited to work with you!

We are launching AI Agent Bootcamps at @tenex_labs! What's an agent bootcamp? A 5-day, free intensive to find & build high-impact agent opportunities with your real systems & data. We've helped dozens of midmarket cos, F2000 enterprises, and PE portcos deploy agents into production. With bootcamps, we're lowering the friction of experiencing the power of an agent within your company's workflows to ~zero. 3 phases of the bootcamp: 1) Find Opportunities - We interview the people closest to the work to identify where agents could have the biggest impact. 2) Map Workflows - We map workflows step by step, including the systems involved and expected business impact. 3) Prototype Agents - We build prototypes on your data, demonstrate the results, and recommend what to take live first. Bootcamps are led by our world-class FDEs & strategists, on the ground, working with your teams and systems. What do you get? 1) A clear AI roadmap with ROI per opportunity 2) Up to 8 mapped opportunities 3) Up to 4 working prototypes Who are agent bootcamps for & how much do they cost? Midmarket & enterprise companies doing >$100m in revenue or funding. Bootcamps are free. They're an opportunity to see what AI agents can do for you before committing. Why are we launching this now? Many companies are in the messy middle of AI transformation. They've rolled out LLMs companywide, perhaps done some AI enablement work, coding agents are being used widely in engineering, and that's it. The next obvious step in the AI journey is bringing agents to the workflows of an organization, but most companies are getting stuck. Taking agents to production is complex and nuanced and we've built a repeatable process for handling the final mile of applied AI, which allows us to take agents into production in ~2 weeks. How do I sign up? Join the Agent Bootcamp waitlist here:

Im so excited to announce Tenex Agents! Off-the-shelf, enterprise-grade AI agents focused on tackling recurring work across functions like Finance, Sales, Marketing, HR, and IT. Everyone & their mother is building/launching agents. So how are ours different? • < 2 weeks to deployment • Built for responsible oversight (permissioning, approvals, audit trails) • Optimized performance layer (model routing, evals, context management) • Custom configured for your processes & systems of record • Tied to agreed upon outcomes Our agents JUST WORK because they’re a labor of love, 18 months in the making. We started Tenex to help companies turn frontier AI research into real business results. Since then, we’ve built hundreds of custom solutions for some of the biggest companies in the world. Along the way, clients keep asking: “What are you seeing on the ground, and what should we be doing next?” We’ve studied the market and spoken with hundreds of executives. Three priorities kept coming up: 1) Faster time to value. See meaningful results quickly and cheaply. 2) A clearer starting point. Know which workflows to tackle and how to measure success. 3) A fit with the business. Work within existing systems, with the right access controls and human oversight. That’s when Tenex Agents said “hold my beer.” We’ve been quietly turned hair on fire customer processes problems into a suite of composable and battle-tested agents. They give you a ready starting point, with Tenex handling the implementation: • Up and running quickly. Most deployments targeted for under two weeks. • Configured for your business. Adapted to your processes and connected to your systems of record. • Built for oversight. Defined permissions, human approvals, and an audit trail. • Measured against an agreed outcome. A clear definition of success for the first workflow. We’re slowly rolling out Tenex Agents, so please fill out this interest form if you’d like to learn more:

I cant help but think sometimes that AI ruined coding Remember the feeling of locking in for hours and hours. The context of the entire codebase all loaded in to your brain. Typing code letter by letter. Bug after bug after bug until it finally worked? Exactly zero new engineers will ever feel that level of flow I wouldn't trade this for the world, but I do miss those days

I went on @FoxBusiness yesterday to talk about my new essay series: "What if AI Goes right?" AI is going to help us cure cancer. It's going to put a PhD-level tutor in every child's pocket. It's going to create abundance for all of us. Huge thanks to @cvpayne for having me on and engaging in a thoughtful discussion as usual.

I think @NotionHQ is one of the top 5 AI companies on the world. We use Notion internally for EVERYTHING at @tenex_labs and I’m excited to announce that we’re partnering with Notion to help small businesses do the same. Together, we’ve built a workshop that turns your AI idea into a working @NotionHQ operating system in one day. Next week, we're running it in Pittsburgh (and it's totally free)!!! You build a real workflow for your business, live, with help in the room, and you leave having already used it. 30 seats, application required. Application link in comments.