Vibe Alignment
Michael Dempsey has a great framing for the secret sauce in the founder/VC relationship. He calls it "vibe alignment" in this excellent and far-reaching post about where we are in the startup/VC world right now. It is certainly possible and probably quite common to build a successful company with an investor syndicate you don't relate to and don't like. But it is not fun. The rare thing is to build a successful company with an investor syndicate you love working with. I've had the pleasure of...
Vibe Alignment
Michael Dempsey has a great framing for the secret sauce in the founder/VC relationship. He calls it "vibe alignment" in this excellent and far-reaching post about where we are in the startup/VC world right now. It is certainly possible and probably quite common to build a successful company with an investor syndicate you don't relate to and don't like. But it is not fun. The rare thing is to build a successful company with an investor syndicate you love working with. I've had the pleasure of...
Gemini Makes Gmail So Much Better
I remember back in 2006 or 2007 when I switched from Outlook email to Gmail. During my Outlook years, I would folder most of my emails and delete the rest so that if I wanted to find an email, I could go look in the folder for it. When I started using Gmail, I set up the same folders, but quickly realized that wasn't necessary because Gmail search was so good I could just search all of my email and find whatever I needed. But the truth is Gmail search wasn't that good and like all you I have ...
Gemini Makes Gmail So Much Better
I remember back in 2006 or 2007 when I switched from Outlook email to Gmail. During my Outlook years, I would folder most of my emails and delete the rest so that if I wanted to find an email, I could go look in the folder for it. When I started using Gmail, I set up the same folders, but quickly realized that wasn't necessary because Gmail search was so good I could just search all of my email and find whatever I needed. But the truth is Gmail search wasn't that good and like all you I have ...
I'm Coding Again
I started programming when I was in high school and helped pay my way through MIT by writing Fortran code in a research lab. I got a job writing software for a naval architecture firm right out of college, and then helped pay my way through grad school by doing some freelance coding gigs. When I got into VC in the mid 80s, I stopped writing code. Other than some UI/UX tweaking here and there, I have not written much code in almost forty years. Like so many of us, the arrival of AI-assisted co...
I'm Coding Again
I started programming when I was in high school and helped pay my way through MIT by writing Fortran code in a research lab. I got a job writing software for a naval architecture firm right out of college, and then helped pay my way through grad school by doing some freelance coding gigs. When I got into VC in the mid 80s, I stopped writing code. Other than some UI/UX tweaking here and there, I have not written much code in almost forty years. Like so many of us, the arrival of AI-assisted co...
Can AI Grow Corn?
I had dinner on Wednesday night with my friend Seth, who has been building products and companies since I met him over thirty years ago. He was expounding on his newfound ability to build products and companies all by himself with AI coding tools. His enthusiasm was off the charts, and I decided to pour some cold water on it and said, "yeah but it can't do stuff in the real world yet." And he said, "Like what?" And I said, "Like grow corn." The next morning this landed in my text messages. As...
Can AI Grow Corn?
I had dinner on Wednesday night with my friend Seth, who has been building products and companies since I met him over thirty years ago. He was expounding on his newfound ability to build products and companies all by himself with AI coding tools. His enthusiasm was off the charts, and I decided to pour some cold water on it and said, "yeah but it can't do stuff in the real world yet." And he said, "Like what?" And I said, "Like grow corn." The next morning this landed in my text messages. As...
Decentralized Social
Back in 2022, when Twitter was sold to Elon Musk, I tweeted this:Twitter is too important to be owned and controlled by a single person. The opposite should be happening. Twitter should be decentralized as a protocol that powers an ecosystem of communication products and services.So began my departure from Twitter which ended up in a complete departure in May 2024 when I wrote this post. I've tried all of the decentralized social protocols, Lens, Bluesky, and Farcaster and have been most acti...
Decentralized Social
Back in 2022, when Twitter was sold to Elon Musk, I tweeted this:Twitter is too important to be owned and controlled by a single person. The opposite should be happening. Twitter should be decentralized as a protocol that powers an ecosystem of communication products and services.So began my departure from Twitter which ended up in a complete departure in May 2024 when I wrote this post. I've tried all of the decentralized social protocols, Lens, Bluesky, and Farcaster and have been most acti...
Sleep
I got an Oura ring a couple of years ago and have been working on improving my sleep and sleep habits ever since. For much of my adult life, I have been a poor sleeper. I have always been able to fall asleep quickly, but I have been plagued by two sleep issues. The first is waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep. The second is waking up early, like 4:30/5am, and being wide awake. So I’ve been working on those two things. I still wake up in the middle of t...
Sleep
I got an Oura ring a couple of years ago and have been working on improving my sleep and sleep habits ever since. For much of my adult life, I have been a poor sleeper. I have always been able to fall asleep quickly, but I have been plagued by two sleep issues. The first is waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep. The second is waking up early, like 4:30/5am, and being wide awake. So I’ve been working on those two things. I still wake up in the middle of t...
Open Office Hours at NYC Tech Week
NYC Tech Week is next week. It will be a week filled with events for the tech sector to engage and connect with each other. A particularly great part of tech week is VC Open Office Hours. There are over 100 VC investors signed up to participate next week. Here is how it works: 1/ you select four investors (out of more than 100) that you want to meet 2/ you get up to four twenty minute meetings 3/ you discuss your idea with the investor in hopes of getting them interested enough to take anothe...
Open Office Hours at NYC Tech Week
NYC Tech Week is next week. It will be a week filled with events for the tech sector to engage and connect with each other. A particularly great part of tech week is VC Open Office Hours. There are over 100 VC investors signed up to participate next week. Here is how it works: 1/ you select four investors (out of more than 100) that you want to meet 2/ you get up to four twenty minute meetings 3/ you discuss your idea with the investor in hopes of getting them interested enough to take anothe...
The Heist
On Saturday, September 9th, the Gotham Gal and I arrived at JFK airport after an eight-hour flight from Paris. While waiting for our luggage, I got pushed a notification in my web3 wallet that there was an NFT drop underway that I could participate in. So I clicked on the link, signed the transaction, and nothing happened (or so I thought). So I tried again. Again nothing happened. Frustrated, I turned my attention to the luggage, retrieved it, got in a car, and headed home. On the way home, ...
The Heist
On Saturday, September 9th, the Gotham Gal and I arrived at JFK airport after an eight-hour flight from Paris. While waiting for our luggage, I got pushed a notification in my web3 wallet that there was an NFT drop underway that I could participate in. So I clicked on the link, signed the transaction, and nothing happened (or so I thought). So I tried again. Again nothing happened. Frustrated, I turned my attention to the luggage, retrieved it, got in a car, and headed home. On the way home, ...
CEO 360s
I’ve written about this topic before. It is an important topic and I want to raise it again. Boards often discuss CEO performance without really knowing how things work inside the company. And CEOs often have very little visibility to how they are doing and what the board thinks about their performance. When you work for one person, your boss, it is typical that you will have regular catchups and at least an annual review of your performance (ideally more frequent). But when you work for a gr...
CEO 360s
I’ve written about this topic before. It is an important topic and I want to raise it again. Boards often discuss CEO performance without really knowing how things work inside the company. And CEOs often have very little visibility to how they are doing and what the board thinks about their performance. When you work for one person, your boss, it is typical that you will have regular catchups and at least an annual review of your performance (ideally more frequent). But when you work for a gr...
Subscribing To AVC
For many years, there were three ways to subscribe to AVC: 1/ Email – Get new posts delivered to your inbox 2/ RSS – Get new posts delivered to your RSS reader 3/ X – Follow AVC on X X revoked the API access that I was using to autopost three or four months ago. I have not been active on that service for almost a year now and have no interest in dealing with it. So if you are one of the 25.5k followers on X and want to keep getting alerted when I post, I suggest you go with option 1 or option...
Subscribing To AVC
For many years, there were three ways to subscribe to AVC: 1/ Email – Get new posts delivered to your inbox 2/ RSS – Get new posts delivered to your RSS reader 3/ X – Follow AVC on X X revoked the API access that I was using to autopost three or four months ago. I have not been active on that service for almost a year now and have no interest in dealing with it. So if you are one of the 25.5k followers on X and want to keep getting alerted when I post, I suggest you go with option 1 or option...
