Peter Zakin
@pzakin
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investor @ upfront ventures. dev tools, ai, data. Sold Hyper Travel to @tradeshift . ex @venmo , YC S2010.
LA
Joined March 2009
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Someone please build:
1. Take a picture of my bookshelf, convert the titles into a spreadsheet.
2. Share that list with friends.
3. Let my friends nearby checkout books from my "library"
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humble request for someone to build a figma competitor that treats code as a first class citizen. still highly bullish on design-to-code automation as a space worth exploring for a startup.
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I’m very excited to be joining
@upfrontvc
as an investor focusing on dev tools and infrastructure.
Thrilled to be working closely with
@kevinyzhang
@msuster
@gimmedadeetz
and supporting early stage founders building generational companies in the space.
DMs are open!
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Very excited to share
@usemacro
with the world today!
Our mission is to change the way that teams handle their recurring work by giving process-builders a dedicated tool to build and manage processes.
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The biggest mistake I made in my last startup was that i cared more about ideas than customers.
I suspect this is the case for a large set of emerging AI companies.
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Thrilled to announce the launch of our team’s latest project, !
Buzz is an attempt to provide structure and clarity to the world of Web3. A directory for people and projects.
Web1 had Yahoo. Web3 has buzz.
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One of my long-standing requests for products (and a college project never fully realized):
Dewey: Beautiful topic based reading lists (syllabuses) curated by “internet librarians”.
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List of side projects I probably won’t get around to building anytime soon:
- personalized textbook chapters
- Wikipedia monitor (detect pages that see subjective drift over time)
- “copycat”: design system replication from existing apps
- product whose atomic unit is a list
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Thinking about secondary effects of lambda school. One that is interesting is the evolving nature of their alumni needs...
Today their students need education and a job. In a few years what else might they need?
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Little concept I was thinking about today: "Generative Links".
Instead of hyperlinks which point to pages that already exist, this would point to a pages that are created just-in-time based on a prompt instruction.
highlight text -> create generative link -> define prompt
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I've been captivated recently by the thought of an AI workspace, something that goes far beyond ChatGPT and others.
I think of an AI workspace as a new kind of horizontal productivity tool: a digital space you share with an AI intelligence for general purpose interactions. What
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Rabbit holes are important. A sort of successor to hyperlinks as connective tissue for a generative web.
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My thesis on replit a few years ago was that it was going to "upstream attack" github by capturing the next generation of coders.
I didnt appreciate at the time how crypto would factor in. But I'd bet that center of gravity for web3 code collaboration becomes replit, not gh.
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Side project I'm sort of tempted to start/want someone to start: oral histories/roundtables around episodes in tech history that deserve more scrutiny.
A few that come to mind:
- Rise and fall of FB platform (from Graph API to Cambridge Analytica)
- Github vs bitbucket
-
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App that I’d like for my drive home everyday, basically a personalized podcast.
- Equip an AI agent with some body of knowledge I want to learn about.
- Discuss those topics w the agent.
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I've been thinking recently that if my LLM assistant had access to the books I'm reading, I'd probably buy more books.
Continue to think of LLMs as cognitive leverage. They increase demand for goods where consumption is partially limited by cognitive resources (eg attention or
I want to put my entire library of ~1k ebooks into a single LLM and talk to it about all the things I've read.
We aren't there yet but we will be.
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A different way of phrasing this is that the things we use spreadsheets for are "software-shaped" holes that need to be filled.
The specific "software shaped hole" that spreadsheets fill is collaborative processes for problems that we've figured out how to model with data...
*spreadsheets* are the main competitor for 90% of software startups
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A hypothesis I am tempted by:
Build tools assuming end users can code… because at some point all users will be assisted by an LLM that can.
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glimpses of a future browser:
- Users can find "similar items" for any element or group of elements. Every resource, a rabbit hole.
- Searches yield objects rather than pages.
- The web's information is reduced to being a DB that you can build experiences on top of.
-
If browsers took the shape of an infinite canvas (e.g. figma) one weird outcome might be that the atomic unit of distribution could be "components" rather than a "page".
E.g. you could arrange Tweet objects in a canvas rather than different "tabs"/pages.
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If you believe ^^ one generator of startup ideas you might have faith in is: what are company processes you’ve seen that you want more companies to adopt?
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Will be in NY next week. If we're mutuals or you're building something great in dev tools, infra, next-gen AI products lmk!
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Thrilled to announce a new program for AI founders at the earliest stages: *Upfront Summer Sundays*.
When I was a founder, I spent weekends hacking at coffee shops with unreliable wifi. The idea of Summer Sundays is to bring together the best early
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Love to see successive generations of upstreaming in venture ecosystem:
- YC was upstream of traditional venture firms, targeting founders who were too early for institutional capital.
- SPC upstream of YC, targeting founders who are in idea discovery/exploration mode (-1 to
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First post in a while... About the value of small groups, collectives, and new forms of internet cooperation:
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👀 Super excited to share our new podcast series: Trust The Process!
We'll be sharing inside stories about the processes and systems behind the world’s most interesting companies.
A terrific first convo with
@juliadewahl
+
@TheDerrickLi
about ops
@Opendoor
🚀 🏡
🚨 We’re launching a podcast called Trust the Process where we’ll be chatting with ops leaders behind the world’s most operationally brilliant companies 🚨
First up,
@juliadewahl
on how
@Opendoor
created the iBuyer category and built a $5bn+ business
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If browsers took the shape of an infinite canvas (e.g. figma) one weird outcome might be that the atomic unit of distribution could be "components" rather than a "page".
E.g. you could arrange Tweet objects in a canvas rather than different "tabs"/pages.
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This makes much more sense to me than people investing in things they don’t understand, eg single family homes in parts of the country they’ve never visited.
Anyone who ever discovered a band before someone else, or an amazing book, or a really useful product could now instantly get on the cap table equivalent before recommending it to their friends.
Arguably more authentic than affiliate marketing due to skin in the game.
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I still think we're early in figuring out what a good interaction model looks like with a general purpose agent.
I think the interaction model i want is something like a notebook, where i can divide complex work into incremental operations that build on top of each other.
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Will be in SF next week. If we're mutuals or if you're working on something in devtools, ai, infra etc... shoot me a dm!
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Something i've become mindful of in my very short time in venture: there's a darkside to being thesis-oriented.
It feels good to see founders working on things that fit your theses.
But that dopamine hit is a really easy way to lose objectivity. Hard to see things clearly when
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Going through old docs in my gdrive and found a doc that i wrote on my last day of venmo. Still think this is fertile ground 5 years later:
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an idea i've been fond of for a while: AI-assisted list builder.
- Create a list of items (e.g. restaurants that you like in NY, a set of books).
- Recommendation system continuously seeks out similar items that fit the theme of the list.
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A strange writing hack that I find very useful:
Pick someone you think is an excellent writer. Read something they've written immediately before writing.
Doing so makes you internalize their rhythms. Makes getting started much easier.
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Tempted to create an LA Tech Week event for introverts: we sit in the lobby of the proper hotel and chat about the future of AI products. Max group size is 8 people.
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An idea i've started to name the "sweet spot of mediocrity": when you know enough to have some clarity about a particular skill-domain (i.e. glass half full of excellence), but struggle enough that you have empathy for those who have difficulty with the skill (glass half empty..)
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I used to think that the market for coding agents would consolidate with one or two major providers. Increasingly coming to the view that this was wrong.
Two big reasons:
1) Companies don't need to be monogamous; they can delegate to different agents for different tasks
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If you’re currently interviewing for roles in Bay Area and you follow me, Id love to pick your brain over coffee. DM me!
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Who has written the best piece on what makes spreadsheets magical?
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Occurs to me that there's likely a dunbar's number for the number of web apps that a person can likely be an active user of.
The implications are bad for the unbundlers.
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Last day at Tradeshift! Grateful for a great two years and now on the next thing :)
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Oh wow.
(It’s from 2013)
Back when Venmo was SMS-based.
(Video should be from 2009/10, not 2013 as the upload says)
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More musings on the future of the browser or "the last app":
- Can reference data sources (podcasts, articles, figma files, git repos) whether on local filesystem or cloud.
- AI primitives for interacting with/transforming content (transcribe, summarize, AI-chat for custom
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The thought that's dominated most of my thinking for the past 6 months:
the transition from apps to "blocks" will have an effect analogous to
Redefining the atomic unit in a market can lead to dramatically increased TAM. Both on supply side (underutilized resources) and demand side (lower price point).
e.g. atomic unit of rented homes (VRBO, HomeAway) redefined to rented beds (Airbnb)
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Congrats! Have been pointing to as one of my favorite startups throughout the last year.
A very good example of the potential that comes from miniaturizing atomic units of creativity.
Val Town is where you write the first line of code that becomes your next side project, internal tool, or startup
We raised $5.5m from Accel + awesome angels to grow our team & build your favorite place to code in the cloud
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One thing they might want in a few years is a new job. I could see Lambda responding to that need and building a true hiring marketplace.
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Will be in SF next week. If we're mutuals or if you're working on something in devtools, ai, infra etc... shoot me a dm!
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//AI Agents that socialize with each other
If personal AI assistants take off, I suspect that they'll come to know a lot about us. The more they know, the more useful they'll be.
I could see use in having agents cooperatively sharing information with other agents, at least
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This is not an original idea and lots of reasons why it’s dumb but...
I want a social mode in Netflix.
Could call it “drivethrough”. Shows have a set time, private audience, chat is ephemeral bubbles (reminiscent of vh1 pop up video).
Like the video version of turntable fm.
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Very proud and excited to announce that Hyper will be joining
@tradeshift
!!!
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Kind of want to create a timeline of highly successful companies raising their first round vs [what were vcs publicly talking about at the time]
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Easy to imagine a world of "Internet Entrepreneurs in Residence" who are backed by the internet, not venture firms in San Francisco. They build publicly, engage their communities for support, and provide their communities with some equity stake in what they build.
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- Severance is good. Counterpart was better.
- The OA was bizarre, but I'm still pissed off they didnt get a chance to finish it.
- I miss 2010 Quora
- Random things I want to build: hypercard, a PKM system based on tweets, startup studio, tools for learning...
cc
@ryandawidjan
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Occurred to me that finding your "voice" for tweets is akin to speaking to a friend who brings out your best thoughts.
The idea of a person who can *bring out* the better qualities of yourself is under-appreciated as an ingredient in creative process.
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Lots of efforts aiming at making software dev easier. Worthwhile to think of this market as a slider among people who can't code, people who can code a little, people who are technical but mediocre + people who are v good.
Each segment is worth building for.
Winners in each.
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A chrome extension/email address you can send links to. It prints out and packages up the articles in a hard-copy magazine that you receive in the mail at the end of every month.
Call it the "Internet Monthly".
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One loose theory I’ve held for a while: the cable companies figured out most channels of human interest.
Would love to see an unbundling map of cable tv channels to internet properties to figure out what channels we forgot to bring with us when we moved to the web.
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I'd bet there is a solid market for a good procurement/advisory for early stage tech startups. like an in-real-life capterra for both picking the right tools and also configuring them properly.
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Two theses I care deeply about:
1. Communication and education are the same thing
2. The end state of documentation is execution
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One reason DAOs are exciting to me is that they make it increasingly possible for me to work with my friends.
The predominant work-model is so monogamous. You pick a company and you only get to work with your coworkers.
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The long term equilibrium for machines interacting w other machines is an API.
In the short term, agents will probably have to impersonate keystrokes and clicks. Not sure how long this agent adolescence lasts.
It seems like a big limitation w/ AI agents rn isn't the AI, it's that the surface for software to interact w/ other software has gotten pretty small
Software on a phone is isolated to itself, and most modern services don't have public APIs. Agents would need to physically tap?
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Going to be in Palo Alto/MV next Wednesday. Hit me up if we're mutuals or you're working on something in dev tools, infra, next-gen AI products.
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A hill I'll die on: no matter the check size, it's rude to not send a note of good will to founders who shut their companies down.
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This might be a surprisingly important company.
Welcome to Curio, where toys come to life! 🧸
We've partnered with
@Grimezsz
on our first 3 characters: Grok 🚀, Gabbo🤖, and Grem👽.
Order by Sunday to receive a Beta Program Certificate in the mail before Xmas, toys ship early 2024!
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Someone could build an amazing version of stumbleupon today.
- Tap button to see a recommended page (Can probably combine browser history + metaphor api)
- Highlight text on a page and a right-click option lets you enter a "wormhole" that takes you to a relevant page.
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Really interesting to see how Zapier has responded to the current AI moment.
Not sure if this is *true*, but it seems plausible that their long-term defensibility comes from token/credential management and not workflow builder or integrations catalogue.
Want to give your agent access to 20k+ tools?
🔥
@LangChainAI
x
@zapier
🔥
Integration now out in Python and JS
Blog Post:
Python Docs:
JS Docs:
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"Intellectual workflows" of the future:
- show me [articles||books] from tweets that have been liked by X || [group of users]
- show me [articles||books] that have been mentioned in tweets by [users].
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goal setting software that treats a digital representation of yourself (e.g. a memoji) like a tamagotchi: e.g. if you don't exercise, your memoji starts to suffer...
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Not sure if this is true for me or for people in general. But if it is true it’s potentially important because it’s a rare opportunity where an increase in value accompanies a drop in the cost of production.
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Threats to google's dominance in search are overstated as long as Google dominates at the browser layer.
The path to unseating Google requires a change at the browser. As I've noted before, there are good reasons to believe now is the time to build a new browser experience.
Wave 1: Google using its immense distribution power with LLM integration into the address bar
If this thing matters, it'll get integrated directly in the search bar without a keyword where they have an outsized advantage.
This is the greatest competitive end game threat I could
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Will be in NY next week for a bit. HMU if we're due for a catchup or you're building something that developers love :)
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Surprised nobody ever created a PaaS for financial services. The default strategic move for every major consumer financial service is to create their own bundle. The better consumer experience is to take best in class from different providers.
Venmo, Mint should have done this.
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I'm usually not a determinist when it comes to tech, but every once in a while the zeitgeist decides to start unraveling a thread and the future becomes more and more obvious as something being uncovered.
--> attempts at a new web browser, blocks platforms, ops as APIs...
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//speculative thoughts on mobile AI assistant
- Assistant builds up deep understanding of who you are, compiled from its interactions with you and from data you authorize it to access from 3p apps. The user will be incentivized to make themselves known to the assistant. An
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Continue to believe the future of the browser and general-purpose assistance are intertwined.
Would bet on OpenAI building or buying a browser.
More musings on the future of the browser or "the last app":
- Can reference data sources (podcasts, articles, figma files, git repos) whether on local filesystem or cloud.
- AI primitives for interacting with/transforming content (transcribe, summarize, AI-chat for custom
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Protocol I'd like to see more of:
Aggregated knowledge where the price of admission is a piece of highly prized information.
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SF batsignal: will be in town next week. If we're mutuals or if you're working on something in dev tools, infra, ai etc... shoot me a dm!
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Easy to say this after the fact, but Retool's demo day pitch from 2017 was really terrific. (video at bottom)
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I'm a big believer in the power of people on the internet coming together and doing big things.
That's the foundational idea behind : a community for people who want to start projects with internet strangers.
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My most bonkers take: slack should launch a forum tool.
Slower, more thoughtful, better structured workplace conversations as an alternative to the chat deluge
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I've been thinking about how we might coordinate work with AI agents.
As an example, imagine an agent that knows your codebase really well and is equipped to contribute to it (soon enough, I expect that Github/Sourcegraph etc... will make this real).
How do we send work to an
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Big consulting firms front bill for their associates to pursue an MBA + forgive the debt if the beneficiary spends X years at the company afterwards.
That itself reflects a certain kind of financial primitive (debt forgiven for talent retention) which could see new applications.
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Arc folders are a terrific feature. Literally just add in a sidebar of relevant websites (perhaps powered by exa) and this would capture one of my core research workflows.
til, Ilya sutskever gave john carmack this reading list of approx 30 research papers and said, ‘If you really learn all of these, you’ll know 90% of what matters today.’
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Surprising that with the emergence of low-code, the ability to let your users draft code in your app (both a fully featured code-editor + secure/sandboxed execution) hasn't manifested into a dedicated offering.
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It starts with checklists.
The goal of any checklist is to memorialize a best practice, to put our best thinking into an artifact and rely on it when the time comes to use it.
Our founding insight as a company is that checklists are secretly a form of programming.
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For better or worse, my thinking around starting companies has centered around "futures" i want to steer the world towards.
A non-exhaustive list of "futures" I believe strongly in:
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Everyday I confront the paradox of thinking that vc commentary is an infohazard and also performing said commentary.
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I suppose it's not the norm to advertise the talents of other investors... but Derrick is one of the most uniquely talented people I've worked with in my career.
V excited for him and the founders he'll be backing.
🚨 pumped to join
@AforeVC
as an investor!
excited to work with
@anamitra
@gjain
@jackmmcclelland
@kaylakav
@ekaurghar
@steevevakees
and partner with founders who are building generational companies 🚀
if you are building or thinking of building a startup, please reach out
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One PG-ism I'm fond of is something like "live in the future and build what seems interesting".
One of the futures I can squint out and see is the inevitability that anyone who knows how to code can go on the internet and find work.
This is inevitable and yet not our world.
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