We (humans) read hundreds of articles on company building, angel investing, and self-management and curate the best ones into a weekly summary—helping founders and operators stay on the top of their game.
Better thinking
Woz wasn’t in it for the money, are you? (3 minute read)
It was Steve Wozniak’s birthday last week. Some people took to a thread to talk about how he messed up selling stock too early. Steve himself responded with the most grounded answer; “I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for.”. Hit the link, ctrl-f “SteveWoz” to see the full response.
Managing founder psychology (10 minute read)
Resurfacing an old classic from Ben Horowitz. I think it’s a worthwhile read for anyone dealing with uncertainty. The bottom line here is that a lot of CEOs are actually failing most of the time. Well, at least, they feel like it. The difference between the best and mediocre is simply that they refuse to quit when everything feels impossible. Building something is a marathon.
Child mortality rates (1 minute read)
Just a quick reminder, despite what Twitter might be telling you, we’re living in the safest and most productive period in human history. Looking at child mortality rates (before their 5th birthday), we’ve gone from >30-60% in 1800 everywhere in the world, to <2% on average. Even in the last 70 years (1950-present) we’ve witnessed a huge improvement. Things are good, let’s keep going.
Operational tactics
Closing your first contract (18 minute watch)
Drawing from his experience founding Monzo and GoCardless, YC's Tom Blomfield shares his playbook for running a tight sales process that lands real, recurring revenue.
Competition is a good thing (1 minute read)
Competition actually validates your market and creates urgency that sharpens your team's focus and shipping speed. Most importantly, competitors often look stronger from the outside than they actually are internally, so the best strategy remains simple - just keep shipping great product for your customers.
How to build a $100m+ cult brand (52 minute watch)
Sophia Amoruso built Nasty Girl and Girlboss into $100m+ brands, then went on to found Trust Fund, an early-stage venture firm investing in tech-enabled companies that help people start and build businesses. Here she talks through her approach to building brands that capture people's attention, and working with venture investors as a consumer business.
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Venture investing
Ideas to find angel investments (1 minute read)
Ben Lang shares a short list of things you can do to find investment opportunities, like DM’ing founders you like with feedback on their product, and keeping an eye on Product Hunt.
Why most VCs hire associates wrong (7 minute read)
Most venture firms are terrible at hiring associates, they treat them like glorified assistants instead of future partners. The smart firms hire way fewer people but actually invest in developing them and give them real influence. It's basically the difference between building future leaders versus cycling through disposable junior staff.
The end of buy-and-hold (2 minute read)
I’ll admit, I’m personally a valhalla or bust kinda guy when it comes to holding private stock. But, perhaps I shouldn’t be. Tomasz from Theory Ventures suggests this strategy is collapsing as IPO timelines have tripled and M&A exits take twice as long, creating a brutal mismatch between 10-year fund cycles and actual liquidity needs. Some firms are now acting a little more like PE firms, building concentrated portfolios and using GP-led secondaries to create liquidity.
Managing your career
Why PMs won’t be replaced by AI (5 minute read)
A PM explains why AI won't replace product managers anytime soon. Sure, AI can write meeting notes and roadmaps, but the real job is thinking from first principles to find actual user problems worth solving. AI makes a great thinking partner for brainstorming and testing ideas, but it can't do the deep reasoning that separates great PMs from glorified project coordinators.
Extreme ownership is the ultimate differentiator (6 minute read)
One thing I’ve learned from working with great people is that they have a really good understanding of what “done” means. It’s the difference between completing a task and owning the outcome. Most people execute what they're told, but standouts anticipate the real objective behind requests and proactively solve for it.
996 at AI companies (7 minute read)
You’ve likely seen 996 pinging around X/LI. Work from 9am-9pm, 6 days a week. If you’re an employee, this tradeoff sometimes makes sense if the potential outcome is huge.We’re seeing it a lot with AI companies, yes the AGI race is on blah blah. But, be sensible. If you’re not a top tier company with high prospects, or even paying people well, you can hardly demand talent to sacrifice their time like this.