OpenAI is paying >$400,000/year (plus equity) for a Head of Events. They want someone to set OpenAI's global events strategy and lead a large, established events and production team. The scope covers everything from flagship conferences and product launches to developer gatherings, executive programs, and regional events. In OpenAI's own words, the goal is connecting the people building AI with the people using it, and letting them experience the technology firsthand. Digital is more crowded than ever. Feeds are full of AI content. Inboxes are packed. The real opening now is in person. The companies that win the next decade will pair a great product with a strong presence in the room and a story people remember. If you build communities, the biggest AI companies in the world are betting on what you do.

Traveled to 14 cities internationally this year. I have never come across an AI tool (including Claude and ChatGPT) that can plan my travel well. Restaurant, cafe, coffee shop recs have a 50% hit rate. Sightseeing recs are always missing a minor detail (place is closed, require tickets, is insanely crowded, etc.) Hotel recs aren't great - they're never the hotels I'd actually end up staying in. Transport recs are decent. I think the human touch is still so important here. Has anyone actually had success using AI to plan an entire trip?

Fascinating. @a16z is hiring a super connector - someone who is with a high level of social surface area, culturally attuned, and deeply entrenched into hard-to-access networks and communities so that they can surface top talent and future founders. Expect to see more of this in the coming years. I don’t think AI will replace this.

Eight Sleep just launched their new Pod 6. $2,899 for a Queen, down from $3,049 (cheaper than prev version) Key highlights: Hub is half the size. Cools and heats 20% faster (meh), but they went from 2 biometric sensors to 18, so it knows whether it's you, your dad, or your dog. Rare in consumer tech to provide better hardware for a lower price. I wonder why they did it. P.S. This is NOT a sponsored post. I am a happy customer of the Pod 5.

Eight Sleep just launched their new Pod 6. $2,899 for a Queen, down from $3,049 (cheaper than prev version) Key highlights: Hub is half the size. Cools and heats 20% faster (meh), but they went from 2 biometric sensors to 18, so it knows whether it's you, your dad, or your dog. Rare in consumer tech to provide better hardware for a lower price. I wonder why they did it. P.S. This is NOT a sponsored post. I am a happy customer of the Pod 5.

Can’t help but think we’re about to get 100x the amount of spam, phishing, and cyberattacks as AI gets better. The scary part isn’t that scams will look more sophisticated. It’s that they’ll look completely normal. “Hey, can you resend that wire?” “Your package couldn’t be delivered.” “Can you jump on a quick call?” “This is your bank’s fraud team.” Stay safe out there.

Cyril is an unusually strong & relevant founder. He was a physician and AI researcher who published work on clinical AI in medical evidence and on agents that navigate electronic health records. Talk about founder-market fit.

Some of my friends took (significantly) lower paying jobs for the opportunity to work with an experienced founder. I think this is a smart move ... proximity is EVERYTHING. Another way to think about it: what is the lifetime value of building credibility with a highly accomplished leader? It can be tangible (e.g. they invest in your future company) or intangible (e.g. they make introductions, promote your work, invite you into their network). Friend of mine crushed it at series A company for a few years (did his "tour of duty") and when he left the founder backed him with $100K.

We're 50 days out from the Outliers Summit! A two-day gathering in New York (Nov 5-6) for founders, builders, and creators building unreasonably ambitious companies, hosted with my friend @ankurnagpal in partnership with @AngelList Two years ago, 600 founders, builders, and operators showed up. This year, we're expecting 1,200+, and it's now two full days instead of one. Last year, 54% of attendees were founders, C-suite, VP+, or investors. 39% were founders and CEOs specifically, and the average founder in the room had raised $5.9M. The operators came from Google, Meta, Stripe, Ramp, Notion, Palantir, a16z, and Thrive, plus a few hundred startups you haven't heard of yet. It's not a conference where you sit in the dark and listen to panels. It's a room where the person next to you is probably building something worth asking about. You'll be hearing from people like Sam Parr, Ryan Hoover (Product Hunt, Weekend Fund), Sahil Lavingia (Gumroad), Andy Dunn (Bonobos, Pie), Nadya Okamoto (Pie, August), Zach Sims (Codecademy), Nik Sharma, and Nat Eliason. Every year I meet someone who started a company because of a conversation they had in that room. Apply to attend below: (Ticket prices go up in two weeks)

Holy sh*t. A friend of mine rented this place out for two weeks and is inviting 100 founders to build a startup to compete for $100,000. Might be the best place to start a company in New York in October. DM or comment below if you want to be involved as a founder or sponsor. P.S. All costs are covered for founders ;)

Been in Denmark for a week now. Not once has a server/barista has smiled at me. But it doesn’t come across as rude. What I’ve noticed here: people aren’t fake-friendly. Servers don’t pretend they’re thrilled to see you or ask how your day is going. At first it can feel cold. But the longer I’m here, the more I think it’s actually a different definition of politeness. In Denmark, politeness seems to mean respecting your space, not wasting your time, and not imposing yourself on you. There’s a cultural explanation for the service piece: Danish society is extremely egalitarian, so there’s less of a “customer above server” dynamic. Less performative but tbh feels way more genuine.

My recent take on NYC vs San Francisco blew up with over 1 million views in the last 24h, and Bill Ackman retweeted it. And I've never seen so much division in the comments. If you're interested in the debate, this is a summary of both perspectives: The case for building in New York: 1. Lifestyle actually matters for retention and creativity. New York’s density of restaurants, art, nightlife, fashion, and media makes people want to stay and build long-term instead of treating the city as a temporary grind station. 2. The talent pool is broader and more complete. SF primarily gives you excellent engineers. NYC gives you engineers plus world-class designers, salespeople, marketers, operators, bankers, and creatives - all of whom modern companies desperately need. 3. Applied AI has a natural home here. Finance, media, advertising, healthcare, real estate, law, and commerce already live in New York, so the AI layer being built on top of them has deeper industry access and faster product-market feedback. 4. Major AI labs now run meaningful operations in the city. You can build a serious frontier-tech career in New York without giving up the ecosystem or the lifestyle. Plenty of people who left SF for NYC call it the best career move they’ve ever made. The combination of energy + opportunity feels different once you’ve lived both. The case for building in SF: 1. The biggest AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc.) were founded and remain headquartered in the Bay Area. NYC mostly has secondary or expansion offices, not the core research gravity. 2. Pure technical density and founder concentration still favor SF. The highest-caliber systems talent, research culture, and “in the room” information still cluster in the Bay. 3. Venture capital for AI remains heavily skewed toward California. The numbers on dollars and deal flow still point west when it comes to the absolute cutting edge. 5. For pure research and deep technical work, many still believe you eventually need to be in SF to access the best opportunities and network effects. NYC is excellent for GTM and applied work, but secondary for core invention. If you’re building something that sits at the intersection of tech + another major industry, New York feels uniquely strong right now. If you’re doing pure frontier AI systems work, the Bay still has the edge. Where do you land after seeing both lists?

For years, the advice was to move to San Francisco if you wanted a career in tech. That advice is now wrong. New York has become the most exciting place in the world to build. A few reasons why: 1. The AI labs are here. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and hundreds of others all run meaningful operations in NYC. You can now build a serious frontier-tech career here without giving up anything. 2. Every major industry lives here, and so does its AI counterpart. New York doesn't only have "tech," but finance, media, advertising, fashion, healthcare, real estate, law, and commerce too, with their applied-AI layer counterparts being built on top of each one. 3. The talent pool is unlike anywhere else. SF gives you engineers. New York gives you engineers, plus world-class designers, salespeople, bankers, marketers, operators, creatives, and media people, all at the top of their fields. Companies will need all of them. 4. People actually want to live here. New York is unlike any other city with its density of restaurants, art, nightlife, fashion, and media - and the people working across these sectors. If you're building something and you're more than just tech, I'd argue there's only one city for you right now.