Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:
Kelly was an editor for the Whole Earth Catalog in the early 1980s, helped start WELL, one of the first online communities, in 1985, and co-founded WIRED magazine in 1993. He’s written a dozen books and published hundreds of essays on topics from art to optimism, travel, religion, creativity, and AI (even before it was a thing). Kelly rode a bicycle across the United States in his 20s. He was Steven Spielberg’s ‘futurist advisor’ on Minority Report, and the inspiration behind the famous ‘Death Clock’ on Futurama, after the show’s creator Matt Groening caught wind of the Life Countdown Clock Kelly keeps on his computer desktop. He organizes tightly curated group walks across Asia and Europe, regularly covering ~100km in a week. He sculpts, draws, paints, and photographs. And he’s a longtime friend and collaborator of Stewart Brand (whose famous line, “Stay hungry, stay foolish,” Steve Jobs quoted in his iconic commencement address at Stanford).
The year is 2025. Coding agents aren’t magic, but they’re about the closest thing we have. We’ve noticed some engineers, in particular at the senior-to-staff level, finding success faster than others. Here we share some top lessons sourced from the experience of our customers and ourselves.
A new class of enterprise software company is emerging. Thousands of AI-native startups have launched in the past 18 months, each pitching an intelligent agent to replace human workers: AI SREs, AI SDRs, AI accountants, AI paralegals. These are not workflow accelerators or data entry helpers, but end-to-end systems designed to do the work for you. We call them Services-as-Software companies, and they’re redefining the structure, value, and go-to-market motion of enterprise software.
Happy birthday Bridgetown Bites! That’s right: Bridgetown Bites turns eight years old today. On July 3, 2017, I launched this website with the desire to write about the Portland food and drink scene. It’s grown and changed over the years, but the mission remains the same.
With business landscapes changing, corporations are increasingly turning to venture building and venture studios as strategic avenues for innovation and growth. If you’re running a large company (as a CEO, Corp Dev, Product Leader, Corp Strategy, or Innovation team), worried about techtonic shifts in technology and markets, these ideas should resonate. Below are a few reasons you should consider “venture building”-creating brand-new, stand-alone companies inspired by your strategy, category, or customers.
Taggar is so confident in the continuing return potential offered by the famed accelerator that he established Phosphor Capital, a venture firm dedicated solely to investing in YC companies. Since launching last year, Phosphor has raised $34 million in capital across two funds.
In the last week, social media users have shared dozens of stories about encounters with Soham Parekh, a software engineer who seems to have been simultaneously working at multiple Silicon Valley startups — unbeknownst to the companies — for the last several years.
The Veteran Fund, a venture capital firm run by GPs with military experience, is raising $50 million for its second fund.
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