Today Rocker is out of stealth. We know you've heard about AI assistant after AI assistant (we're tired of it too!). Rocker is something different -- it is both an assistant for the busiest knowledge workers and an AI nervous system for companies. Read more from @alexrkonrad

"Advancement is getting rid of the credit card altogether." $5B startup Metropolis (@metropolisio) is chasing what co-founder Alex Israel (@Alex__Israel) calls a new market: the “recognition economy.” From parking lots to offices and fast food restaurants, Metropolis hopes to eliminate the need for a physical wallet altogether. "Advancement is getting rid of the credit card altogether, moving away from payment, moving towards acknowledgement, personalization, and belonging," he says. "How can we leverage computer vision, artificial intelligence, with a real adoption and focus on privacy? How can you leverage all of that together, to drive these remarkable experiences everywhere? That's what we're focused on." Watch the whole episode here: For more, visit Season 3 of the Upstarts Podcast is presented by ⁠⁠⁠Jira by Atlassian: Produced & edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod:

"This is not about surveillance. This is not about organizations like Flock." Public concern about Flock Safety has boiled over in recent months, from reports about law enforcement officers abusing access, to Americans vandalizing or destroying the startup’s cameras. At Metropolis, the $5B startup beyond much of the commercial parking in North America, co-founder Alex Israel says his company is taking a different approach. Metropolis doesn’t license data to government agencies, and benefitting from Metropolis’s AI recognition tech is opt-in, he claims, in pursuit of a “fair balance” of convenience and privacy. "Why do we feel so fine giving up our privacy in the airport?" he asks. "Why do you feel comfortable onboarding your face onto the iPhone? Because you feel comfortable with the fair exchange of value." Metropolis won’t license its data, Israel insists. And he dreams of walking into New York office buildings and not having to hand over a physical ID. "Handing my address over to a perfect stranger, for me, that’s an invasion of privacy," he says. Watch the whole episode here:

Fast facts on Watchtower 🏰 ▪️Inspired by a chat with Admiral Paparo of @USPACOM ▪️Named after the WWII operation ▪️Tech mixes LLMs with in-house simulation software, can run on secret, local data ▪️Incubated by @ShieldCapVC and led by the firm's Akhil Iyer (@AkhilIyer1), now a venture partner ▪️Team of nearly 30 across Bay Area, Seattle, Hawaii, DC ▪️Backed by Shield, @saranormous of @conviction, In-Q-Tel, and @zebulgar and @traestephens of @foundersfund ▪️Already in pilot with several U.S. commands

Exclusive: new defense startup Watchtower Labs is launching from stealth with $35M to help solve the U.S. military's logistics mess. I spoke with CEO and U.S. Marines veteran Akhil Iyer (@AkhilIyer1) about the company and mission to bring logistics into the AI era. Link below.

Exclusive: Tolan's AI app is used by 250K people, mostly outside of Silicon Valley. Now the startup has raised $30M from USV, Khosla Ventures and Homebrew to widen access to an AI companion CEO Quinten Farmer (@quintendf) wants you to trust. My Upstarts profile (link below) 👇

DATA: Are AI assistants launching a new era of agentic commerce? @danhilltech, head of consumer product at @stripe, thinks so. I spoke to him for exclusive intel on how 70+ assistants currently use @link, including how much they spend, and on what 👀

Neko CEO Hjalmar Nilsonne was licking his wounds after "crash landing" a climate startup. Then he got a fateful DM from Spotify's Daniel Ek Together, @HjalmarNilsonne and @eldsjal co-founded @Neko, a $7B startup that calls itself "the most valuable hour you can spend on your health." After years operating in Europe, Neko recently launched in NYC, where it's quickly built a waitlist of 50,000 people, and started work on 3 more locations. Miami, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. are next. “People sometimes think that there’s some machine, and you go in, and you get a kind of paper receipt telling you if you’re gonna die or not,” Hjalmar tells me. “In reality, it’s the exact opposite.” On The Upstarts Podcast, Nilsonne talks about the fateful Twitter DM from Ek that got Neko going; why the doctor visit hasn’t changed much in 100 years; and how to keep a startup team motivated while chasing a long-term “moonshot.” Plus, he shares his Upstart Moment: a bet-the-company pivot driven by an internal memo he wrote, “Free Is Not Enough.” A big thanks to this season's sponsors @Atlassian and @chargebee for supporting unfiltered founder interviews like this 🫡 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Introduction 01:48 Mapping Your Body In One Hour 03:54 Why The Doctor’s Visit Hasn’t Changed In 100 Years 07:31 Building Four Businesses In One: Devices, Hardware, Software, Clinics 09:22 Breaking Down A Neko Visit First-Hand 12:58 Why Half of Neko’s U.K. Members Never Had A Health Check 16:59 ‘Brutally Efficient With Your Time’: Why Every Second Counts 19:04 Helping Human Doctors, Not Replacing Them 22:40 Delivering Outcomes For the 92% Of Members Not At Risk 26:47 A Climate ‘Crash Landing’ And A DM From Daniel Ek 33:12 Motivating A Team To Chase A Moonshot 37:42 Neko’s Upstart Moment: The ‘Free Is Not Enough’ Memo And Pivot 41:30 Pricing Neko Accessibly For The 99.9% 45:44 What The Tesla Roadster Can Teach Founders About Change 48:33 Space-Age Scan, Old-School Advice: Cut The Coffee Thanks for watching!

EXCLUSIVE: Founder Ben Lamm (@BenLamm) built successful startups in gaming, SaaS and AI. But the boldest — and biggest — bet of his career is Colossal Biosciences, a biotech bringing back extinct species like the dire wolf, dodo, Tasmanian tiger and woolly mammoth 🦣 It's a decades-long endeavor so crazy that one investor warned Lamm it would "completely ruin" his career. But so far, it's working. Founded in 2021 by Lamm and famed Harvard geneticist George Church, @Colossal has already cloned at least three dire wolves; created woolly mice; and reportedly held talks to raise at a valuation north of $23 billion 📈 Still, Lamm faces some basic but persistent questions: Why do all this? And isn't this like Jurassic Park? On the Season 3 debut of The Upstarts Podcast, Lamm talks about why Colossal made reviving the mammoth its North Star; why building in biology is so different from software; and why he won't consider anything short of reviving every targeted species a success. Plus: Why Lamm insists Colossal won't bring back the dinosaurs 🦖 A big thanks to this season's presenting sponsor @Atlassian and supporting sponsor @chargebee for supporting unfiltered founder interviews like this 🫡 YouTube and audio links below 👇 Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 01:48 A Dinosaur-Free Future 03:52 George Church And The Mammoth As North Star 06:28 Why Kids Brought In 30% Of Colossal's Investors 9:47 Current-Day Conservation Efforts With Elephants 15:17 "The Most Undervalued Company On The Planet" 17:45 Founder Origins In Gaming And Jurassic Park 22:24 Spending $1 Million Of Personal Cash To Face Early Doubts 25:22 No Splicing: Reading 104 Mammoth Genomes 29:15 Dire Wolves, Woolly Mice And Uninvited Visitors 32:05 Why Mammoths Are More Dangerous Than Dire Wolves 35:55 Government Contracts, Spinouts And Noah's Ark 2.0 41:54 Artificial Wombs And A Slipping Mammoth Deadline 43:54 Why Missing One Species Would Mean Failure

are you also wondering why there are jets flying over San Francisco right now? You should probably check out my new podcast episode (it has nothing to do with it, but still — check it out)

I'm asking each Season 3 Upstarts Podcast guest the same 3 questions for a newsletter exclusive ✍️ ▪️What's the best advice you've gotten? ▪️What's the worst? ▪️If you had one do-over from a save point, what would it be? Read @BenLamm's answers here 👇

EXCLUSIVE: Founder Ben Lamm (@BenLamm) built successful startups in gaming, SaaS and AI. But the boldest — and biggest — bet of his career is Colossal Biosciences, a biotech bringing back extinct species like the dire wolf, dodo, Tasmanian tiger and woolly mammoth 🦣 It's a decades-long endeavor so crazy that one investor warned Lamm it would "completely ruin" his career. But so far, it's working. Founded in 2021 by Lamm and famed Harvard geneticist George Church, @Colossal has already cloned at least three dire wolves; created woolly mice; and reportedly held talks to raise at a valuation north of $23 billion 📈 Still, Lamm faces some basic but persistent questions: Why do all this? And isn't this like Jurassic Park? On the Season 3 debut of The Upstarts Podcast, Lamm talks about why Colossal made reviving the mammoth its North Star; why building in biology is so different from software; and why he won't consider anything short of reviving every targeted species a success. Plus: Why Lamm insists Colossal won't bring back the dinosaurs 🦖 A big thanks to this season's presenting sponsor @Atlassian and supporting sponsor @chargebee for supporting unfiltered founder interviews like this 🫡 YouTube and audio links below 👇 Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 01:48 A Dinosaur-Free Future 03:52 George Church And The Mammoth As North Star 06:28 Why Kids Brought In 30% Of Colossal's Investors 9:47 Current-Day Conservation Efforts With Elephants 15:17 "The Most Undervalued Company On The Planet" 17:45 Founder Origins In Gaming And Jurassic Park 22:24 Spending $1 Million Of Personal Cash To Face Early Doubts 25:22 No Splicing: Reading 104 Mammoth Genomes 29:15 Dire Wolves, Woolly Mice And Uninvited Visitors 32:05 Why Mammoths Are More Dangerous Than Dire Wolves 35:55 Government Contracts, Spinouts And Noah's Ark 2.0 41:54 Artificial Wombs And A Slipping Mammoth Deadline 43:54 Why Missing One Species Would Mean Failure