What I read and listen to the week of 07/07?
What I read
- Startups promise total freedom, but most quickly become rigid, stressful businesses. Cluely's journey from grand ambition to selling meeting software shows how startups often sacrifice bold ideas for corporate reality.
How To Counter A False Statement About You
- After unintentionally causing offense, avoid defensiveness. Instead, take immediate action to visibly demonstrate your true intentions. This proactive approach rebuilds trust and counters negative perceptions effectively.
- ere's a lot of excitement about what AI can do, but many of the conversations about the technology are so abstract that they border on meaningless. This post attempts to concisely summarize how AI agents work. It looks at a handful of real-world use cases for the technology. AI agents are a multiplier on software quality and system design. If software or systems are poorly designed, agents will only cause harm.
Is the “Conviction” Game in VC Is BS?
- Carta ran 20,000 simulations comparing two VC strategies and found something VCs don't want to hear. A "spray and pray" fund with 100 investments beats a "conviction" fund with 20 investments almost every time - 2.6x returns vs 2.1x, and 99.7% chance of not losing money vs 81.9%. Only the top 5% of funds do better with conviction. Yet VCs still concentrate because LPs love the story of genius stock-picking. The math says most VCs would do better admitting they can't predict winners and making more bets.
AI Isn’t To Blame for the Rise in Layoffs — Your Systems Are
- AI may take the blame for the layoff anxiety infiltrating companies, but the real culprit is ineffective operations. Our expert examines why that is and how to fix it.
Coding Agents 101: The Art of Actually Getting Things Done
- The Devin creators advocate "defensive prompting" - explicitly telling agents HOW to approach tasks, not just what to build - while noting 1-6 hour tasks offer the highest ROI. They observe that senior-to-staff engineers adopt AI tools the fastest because they understand how to architect tasks for junior employees.
Figma Files Registration Statement for Proposed Initial Public Offering
- After confidentially submitting its S-1 to the SEC in April, Figma has now made it public and will list on NYSE under ticker "FIG"—marking the first major design tool IPO. Figma hasn't revealed share price or offering size yet, but the move signals confidence in the market for collaborative design software after years of speculation about when it would go public.
- You look at Granola and think "another AI meeting notebook," then see 10% weekly growth and get confused. How did it win in a market with 20+ competitors? Granola realized everyone was solving the wrong problem. Competitors assumed people wanted perfect AI transcripts, but Granola noticed something: people actually like taking notes - it helps them pay attention. They just miss stuff. So instead of replacing note-taking, the company enhanced it. VCs loved it because it worked invisibly (no embarrassing bot joining calls) and made their scattered notes actually useful.
Why Investors Don't Care About Your Business
- VCs keep passing on profitable businesses because they're not looking for good companies - they need potential 100x returns. Since IPOs dried up, everyone's chasing AI startups and hyping valuations through secondary sales. If you take VC money, their moonshot business model becomes yours, whether you like it or not.
- Messaging is a critical lever that amplifies good ideas and transfers emotion, yet mediocre copy signals unclear thinking and wasted opportunity. Improve writing clarity or refine underlying ideas to turn neutral copy into impactful messaging.
The 1-minute introduction that makes people remember you forever
- How High-Performing Executives Can Build Connection, Authority, and Trust in 60 Seconds or Less
What I listened to
I’ve run 75+ businesses. Here’s why you’re probably chasing the wrong idea. | Andrew Wilkinson
Andrew Wilkinson is the co‑founder of Tiny, a holding company that quietly owns more than three dozen profitable internet and consumer brands, including Dribbble and the AeroPress coffee maker. Starting as a teenage barista and web designer, he’s created a portfolio approaching $300 million in yearly sales (and he was personally worth over $1 billion at one point)—all without ever raising venture capital.
Recommended books:
• The Laws of Human Nature
• How to Get Rich: One of the World’s Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets
and the guest's own book: Never enough
Have a great week ahead!
