The Investor Outreach System🔗; Power, Status, and Legitimacy in Tech⚖️; AI’s Real-World Impact ⚡
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Let’s get into it.
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In-Depth Insights 🔍
The Investor Outreach System: List, Prompts, Sequence, Replies 🔗
The playbook outlines an automated LinkedIn workflow covering investor targeting, personalized messaging, outreach sequencing, and reply management. It argues consistent personalization fades at scale and pairs templates with supporting fundraising resources to improve execution.
How to Find and Win the Economic Buyer in B2B Software Sales 🎯
Chris Tottman explains that budget authority usually sits with the Economic Buyer rather than the internal Champion supporting the purchase. He recommends tracing budget ownership, understanding personal incentives, and treating discovery conversations as business diagnosis instead of product demos. [Chris Tottman]
Software’s Selective Sell-Off and AI’s Real-World Impact ⚡
Software multiples have fallen to decade lows while cyber, observability, and vertical SaaS continue to outperform broader software categories. Lower AI costs are increasing adoption, boosting hiring and wages in AI-heavy sectors, while data center expansion aligns with cheaper electricity in key markets. [Moses Sternstein, a16z]
KIMI’s Agent Playbook: 10 Bets Founders Should Steal🧠
Yang Zhilin argues agent systems outperform pure reasoning by learning from live feedback instead of operating in isolation. He also shares Moonshot’s efficiency work, rejects a fixed definition of AGI, and sees AI expanding human capability over time.
The 10 Claude Skills Every Founder & Builder Should Steal 🛠️
The guide packages ten reusable Claude workflows for research, product strategy, engineering, pricing, fundraising, and decision making. Each workflow defines a persona, structured output, strict constraints, and a forcing function with setup instructions for Claude.
Power, Status, and Legitimacy in Tech ⚖️
The essay argues tech status has shifted from fundraising prestige to revenue milestones, but both remain signals valued mainly within the industry. It claims lasting legitimacy comes from building institutions, giving back, or surrendering control instead of relying on company success alone. [Michael Dempsey]
The Problem with Hypergrowth AI Startups 📉
Many fast-growing AI startups rely on reselling inference, making revenue growth vulnerable to shrinking margins and commodity pricing. As enterprises adopt bring your own inference strategies, businesses without durable differentiation may struggle to justify premium valuations. [Zach Lloyd]
Social Media Gems 💎
Fundraising Around Lift, Not Runway 🎯
Keith Rabois argues capital should match the next value creating milestone instead of targeting an arbitrary cash buffer. Ruben also announced his role as an a16z Speedrun scout, offering founders fast feedback, funding opportunities, and program introductions.Every Funding Round Removes Risk 🧩
A startup begins with execution, product, market, and commercial uncertainty that investors expect to shrink over time. Seed validates the foundation, Series A proves repeatability, and each milestone clears another reason for investors to hesitate.
Trending News ⚡
Anthropic’s $1.5B Copyright Settlement Approved ⚖️
A judge approved a $1.5 billion settlement covering roughly 500,000 illegally downloaded books at $3,000 per work. The court kept its fair use ruling for model training but ruled acquiring books from pirate sites violated copyright law. [TechCrunch]US Commits $5B to AI Powered Research 💵
The US will invest $5 billion across 15 agencies to apply AI to healthcare, science, and advanced materials. Microsoft will contribute $40 million in compute credits to support research over the next three years. [Reuters]OpenAI Sees Secondary Market Comeback 📈
Demand for OpenAI shares is climbing after recent model launches and stronger Codex adoption. Anthropic remains the most sought after private AI company despite the shift in investor activity. [Business Insider]
DeepSeek Founder Prioritizes AGI Over Profit 🔓
Liang Wenfeng said DeepSeek will focus on long term AGI development instead of maximizing short term returns. He also argued computing infrastructure, not technical talent, remains the largest competitive gap with the US. [Reuters]
Anthropic Physical Intelligence Talks Resurface 🤖
Reports confirmed Anthropic discussed acquiring Physical Intelligence earlier this year despite public denials. OpenAI’s investment in the startup has also renewed questions about future ownership possibilities. [TechCrunch]
Google Developing New Efficient AI Chip 🔧
Google is building a next generation server chip designed to deliver significantly higher efficiency by 2028. The report lifted Alphabet shares ahead of earnings as investors looked for lower AI infrastructure costs. [TechCrunch]ChatGPT’s Ad Business Faces Analyst Skepticism 📉
Analysts believe OpenAI’s advertising revenue targets are well ahead of current market expectations. Advertisers also point to limited measurement tools compared with established platforms like Google and Meta. [Business Insider]Moonshot Pauses New Kimi Subscriptions 🔒
Moonshot temporarily stopped new Kimi K3 subscriptions after demand pushed GPU capacity to its limit. Current users remain unaffected while the company expands infrastructure before its planned open release. [Business Insider]
Anthropic Upgrades Claude’s Voice Mode 🎙️
Claude users can now switch between Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku directly in voice conversations. The update also expands app connections while keeping free accounts limited to Haiku and one integration. [TechCrunch]
OpenAI Chair Predicts End of Token Worries 🪙
Bret Taylor expects token management to become invisible as specialized providers handle the complexity. He compared the shift to the early internet, where technical barriers steadily disappeared as the ecosystem matured. [Business Insider]
New Funds 💰
Fresenius launched a €200M corporate venture capital fund to invest in breakthrough healthcare technologies and drive healthcare innovation.
Transition VC launched its second £155M venture capital fund to back early-stage climate tech startups accelerating the energy transition.
Supercharger Ventures launched €10M Fund I to invest in early-stage edtech and future-of-work startups across Europe.
EHE Ventures opened the second cohort of its $15M venture fund, continuing to back high-potential early-stage founders.
Primo Capital launched Primo Space 2, its second venture capital fund focused on supporting European space technology startups.
That’s a wrap for this week.
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