Higgsfield just entered the ranks of iconic startups that have reached $1B in revenue run rate. Alex Mashrabov (@alexmashrabov) is an absolute force of nature and we’re so fortunate at Menlo to have led the seed round.

Only 53 shows on IMDb with 9.0+ and 25k+ reviews. Only 10 premiered in the last 5 years. I watched one of them, a 1 season 16 episode Korean show called When Life Gives You Tangerines, and it’s the most beautiful family drama tear-jerker ever. One of the best shows ever.

“I think about time in model generations. Each one takes 3-4mos. 3 gen ago, I was writing code by hand. So when people ask me what’s going to happen in 2yrs, that’s 8 gens later. I have no idea.” Sensei @karpathy on the future of AI models.

Most people are wrong here. It IS actually possible to communicate between two airgapped computers with temperature changes, but the data transfer rate is too slow (1-8b/hr) to be effective. The underlying point Noam makes is true though: there are a deluge of crazy airgapped comms techniques like EM emanations from DRAM clocks that get a lot faster (300kbps). This isn’t sci-fi. We vastly underestimate what AI can do with perfect knowledge of all of this literature.

The deep amount of anxiety people in tech are feeling is off the charts. Had a couple conversations with people of various ages and the themes are: - Every day there are 5 new earth shattering new tech breakthroughs. I can’t keep up. Should I be keeping up? Am I falling behind? - What does my career and skill mean in the age of AI? Is software engineering a 30yr long career any more? Is product management? - Is my only hope to start a company? - At the very least, it feels like I should join a startup but which one? Everything seems either overvalued or has no moat. - Okay I joined a startup. Is my company’s equity worth anything or will this be another Airtable or Miro? - Startup is doing well. How in the world am I supposed to find a significant other? - Will these immigration policy shifts allow me to be here long term? - Will I ever be able to afford a house and a life in the Bay Area amidst the biggest wealth creation event of all time? - Okay, I figured all of that out. What is my purpose? I’m wealthy but no one really cares. I don’t really know what to do with it. Am I supposed to start a company? - Alright I found peace in kids. But I’m worried about them. How does one raise kids in this climate? What are the rules of this new world order? Many of these concerns are of course not limited to tech or the Bay, although it feels particularly concentrated here (versus what I see in NYC). Maybe some people will read this and feel anxious themselves, and for that I apologize. For the rest, just know that it’s not just you who feels this way. It’s a lot of people!

The deep amount of anxiety people in tech are feeling is off the charts. Had a couple conversations with people of various ages and the themes are: - Every day there are 5 new earth shattering new tech breakthroughs. I can’t keep up. Should I be keeping up? Am I falling behind? - What does my career and skill mean in the age of AI? Is software engineering a 30yr long career any more? Is product management? - Is my only hope to start a company? - At the very least, it feels like I should join a startup but which one? Everything seems either overvalued or has no moat. - Okay I joined a startup. Is my company’s equity worth anything or will this be another Airtable or Miro? - Startup is doing well. How in the world am I supposed to find a significant other? - Will these immigration policy shifts allow me to be here long term? - Will I ever be able to afford a house and a life in the Bay Area amidst the biggest wealth creation event of all time? - Okay, I figured all of that out. What is my purpose? I’m wealthy but no one really cares. I don’t really know what to do with it. Am I supposed to start a company? - Alright I found peace in kids. But I’m worried about them. How does one raise kids in this climate? What are the rules of this new world order? Many of these concerns are of course not limited to tech or the Bay, although it feels particularly concentrated here (versus what I see in NYC). Maybe some people will read this and feel anxious themselves, and for that I apologize. For the rest, just know that it’s not just you who feels this way. It’s a lot of people!

I’ve heard 100s of startup pitches this year. Here’s the good, the bad and the meh recurring trends from my experience: The good: - High raise amounts and valuations. More inflated for strong teams pre-revenue in hot areas (robotics, bio, personal agents) - Insane topline growth numbers, many growing >10x this year. By the time a round closes, a high valuation seems justified. - Tons of M&A It is what it is: - Revenue run rate = last month revenue x 12 - Small teams - Seat based < Platform fee < Usage based billing seems to be the trend for most products - Tranched rounds - Best teams have extremely fast product iteration speed - SaaS products positioning themselves as AI tools to seem appealing to investors The bad: - Low or negative gross margin if reselling tokens. Non-standard accounting - High “Contracted ARR” that’s not live yet - High revenue concentration - Expensive compute, limited availability, delays. Excess compute reselling - Many wrappers with very thin tech differentiation: “self improving harness”, “multi model / router”, “agent swarms”, “computer use” - Overworked employees. AI generated - All spaces seem very competitive - Areas can seem hot one moment before being not

DeepSeek might be the new king of open-source models. It obliterates GLM 5.3 and Kimi K3 on benchmarks while being 4x and 10x cheaper. An insane $0.3/M in, $1.2/M out. And it’s #6# amongst humans on Codeforces! This is exactly what startups with coding products needed.

DeepSeek might be the new king of open-source models. It obliterates GLM 5.3 and Kimi K3 on benchmarks while being 4x and 10x cheaper. An insane $0.3/M in, $1.2/M out. And it’s #6# amongst humans on Codeforces! This is exactly what startups with coding products needed.

Many startup employees do not recognize the sheer litany of ways that a founder can screw you over without you even knowing. Founder trust is one of the most important things to look at when you’re joining a startup. From cutting you out of M&A, screwing your retention pool, overdiluting your equity, firing you before your cliff, not having attractive options exercise plans, poor 409a price management, not telling you about QSBS / early exercise, blocking you from participating in secondary, obscuring company performance and many more. Many many decisions that are made in rooms you are not in as an employee where the only thing that matters is: “does the founder have your back?” Great startups with untrustworthy founders lead to poor outcomes and often good startups with trustworthy founders lead to great outcomes. Pick wisely.

Many startup employees do not recognize the sheer litany of ways that a founder can screw you over without you even knowing. Founder trust is one of the most important things to look at when you’re joining a startup. From cutting you out of M&A, screwing your retention pool, overdiluting your equity, firing you before your cliff, not having attractive options exercise plans, poor 409a price management, not telling you about QSBS / early exercise, blocking you from participating in secondary, obscuring company performance and many more. Many many decisions that are made in rooms you are not in as an employee where the only thing that matters is: “does the founder have your back?” Great startups with untrustworthy founders lead to poor outcomes and often good startups with trustworthy founders lead to great outcomes. Pick wisely.

We’ve seen the Jevons Paradox happen for coding, but now we’re seeing the numbers for video. Making animated short dramas is 10x cheaper and 450x faster with AI, and it’s led to >12x more creation and 10x more views on China’s TikTok.

We’ve seen the Jevons Paradox happen for coding, but now we’re seeing the numbers for video. Making animated short dramas is 10x cheaper and 450x faster with AI, and it’s led to >12x more creation and 10x more views on China’s TikTok.

5 human records were beaten at the World Humanoid Robot Games in China that ended a few days ago, fully autonomously! Across 51 events, two robot makers had the strongest showing: — Agibot, and their wheeled Genie G2 (~$140k) and Agilink OmniHand Ultra (~$61k), which crushed the task based events — X-Humanoid, and their Tiangong Ultra (~$41k), which crushed athletics Unitree ($37B), which stole the show last year and popped in its IPO this year, scaled back the night of the preliminaries with a poor showing. In a big change from last year, most events required full autonomy with only teleop / remote allowed for certain task based events. This is incredible progress in just 1 year in humanoid robotics. A year ago the best 100m was 21.5s. China continues to demonstrate its lead. They ship 86-97% of the world's humanoid robots. We are close to superhuman physicality and getting there on autonomy in certain domains. And there's a long way to go: the bots could only lift 16kg in the weightlifting event. And yes, they'd occasionally blow up. This is the worst the humanoids will ever get.

Met a kid y'day who has 50+ agents running with a harness tuned for cyber security and a search index of CVEs with a QLoRA'd GLM 5.2 and tries to break production websites 24/7. Didn't go to college. Makes money in bug bounties. The kids are definitely alright.