everything you need to read this week by @stephthefounder (July 21)

The goal is to be the best weekly newsletter to be the most succinct + fun way to learn about all the best things you need to know across tech, startups, VC, etc, sent out every Monday. (and at the minimum, it will include the links I post about every week on instagram!). Feedback (and a better/more creative newsletter name than the boring one I have now) always welcome!

did more news happen last week than the astronomer ceo cheating scandal?? that was news to me as i was researching and aggregating links for this newsletter this morning 🤪 

some of my favorite posts / memes:

also in smaller news, last week was a big milestone week for me in my little creator ‘career’ (which also coincidentally was my 6 month anniversary of posting on IG) — 1) i crossed 200K on IG (and 45K on TikTok!), 2) our newsletter community crossed 5K in just under 3 months (tiny in relation to all the amazing newsletters out there i know, but this has quickly become my favorite thing to do given i’ve gotten to talk to more of you through it + it feels like a place i can be a bit more candid and casual), 3) one of the biggest campaigns i’ve ever been a part of for cash app went live here (last slide!) 🥺 

i can’t emphasize how grateful i am to you all for giving me this platform to share about topics i love so much (startups, equity, founders, tech, the crossover of all of these things and culture/the future, etc) and for giving me all the cool opportunities i’ve been able to have in even a few short months. 🥲 thank you!!!

💰 Companies that will make you a millionaire

Every week I highlight a few of my favorite startups that I personally think are really promising. They’ve typically received funding that week + are hiring, and occasionally I’ll include some special bonus ones.

This week’s companies:

1. OpenEvidence: aka ChatGPT for doctors - OpenEvidence has been making waves as the go-to AI platform for U.S. clinicians, helping doctors cut through information overload and make fast, evidence-based decisions at the point of care. Used by over 40% of the nation's physicians and deployed in more than 10,000 hospitals, the company is not only changing the way medical knowledge is accessed, but also ramping up its impact with a 2,000%+ year-over-year growth in monthly clinical consultations. They raised a $210M Series B at a $3.5B valuation (backed by Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, and other major funds)

   • Job openings can be found here

2. Unify: aka AI agents for sales/GTM — they’re turning the chaos of B2B sales into something far more predictable, helping go-to-market teams find the right buyers, automate outreach, and surf real-time intent signals with a suite of AI agents—all from one dashboard. A competitive space but with great customers (including many companies I’ve mentioned before like Airwallex, Cursor, Perplexity, and Flock Safety) already on board, Unify’s momentum keeps picking up: the company just raised a $40M Series B led by Battery Ventures

   • Job openings can be found here

3. Substack: we all know Substack as the beloved newsletter platform, and I’m excited to see their continued transformation to be a more broad media platform / social network (adding features like live video chats, real-time messaging, and a Twitter-like feed called Notes to help writers and readers build deeper connections). Media continues to be disrupted from all directions (AI content creation, YouTube/streaming/social media continues to rise, creators continue to have more influence, etc), and I think Substack plays well into the trend of people/personalities > organizations. They just raised a $100M round at a $1.1B valuation (!)

   • Job openings can be found here

Some bonus companies that were also funded last week:

• Moonvalley (AI video tools for filmmakers) 🎬 → $84M Series B (Job openings here)

• Hadrian (automated factories for defense/aerospace) 🏭 → $260M (Job openings here)

• Firestorm Labs (3D-printed defense drones) 🛸 → $35M Series A (Job openings here)

• Heron (AI for financial services automation) 🏦 → $16M Series A (Job openings here)

• Folio (hotel purchasing + billing automation) 🏨 → $14M Series A (Job openings here)

• ParadeDB (search/analytics engine on Postgres) 🔍 → $12M Series A (Job openings here)

• Ephemera (decentralized messaging protocol) 🕸️ → $20M Series B (Job openings here)

• Chariot Defense (AI for battlefield infrastructure) ⚡ → $8M Seed (Job openings here)

• Monumental Labs (AI stone-carving robots) 🏛️ → $7M Seed (Job openings here)

• Bidbus (AI-powered car selling platform) 🚗 → $3.3M Seed (Job openings here)

🤓 Best things to read instead of doomscrolling

The best things I’ve read every week, listed and summarized here

1. Everyone’s the Hero of Their Own Story by Cate Hall (h/t @mattprusak) – loved this essay about how we’re all the ~main characters~ in our own stories (and it has nothing to do with needing to see ourselves as heroes who win, but rather someone who’s trying to do good whose choices matter. This quote was powerful - “Being a victim is an easy way to stay the hero, especially if you view the game as rigged against you.”). When this belief we’re doing good is threatened, so is our self-concept (which is why people then reinterpret what it means to be good, for example)

2. On Self-Respect by Joan Didion: one of my favorite things I’ve read in a long time and perhaps a good complement to #1 in regards to owning your choices (even when they’re not always “good” and how that’s one of the biggest signs of self-respect). TLDR self-respect is the opposite of external validation — it’s one’s sense of intrinsic worth, accepting responsibility of one’s flaws/actions rather than wallow in self-pity, and discipline

3. Is It Time to Stop Snubbing Your Right-Wing Family? by David Litt – Former Obama speechwriter realizes ideological purity is overrated from his experience of being forced to build a relationship with someone with very different ideological views (i.e. his brother-in-law). A case for grace over grandstanding. I’ve talked a lot about and recommended @timurban’s book Wait but Why (about how and why our world became so tribalistic) and if you liked that you will likely enjoy this

4. We’re Not Ready for Superintelligence (AI in Context, 30-min video) – A walk-through of the “AI 2027” report, the perspective danger of concentrated power exacerbated by AI vs a more responsible rollout where AI is aligned with human values (”We predict that the impact of superhuman AI over the next decade will be enormous, exceeding that of the Industrial Revolution”). I admittedly haven’t finished it entirely yet but 1) I’m enjoying it, and 2) it has been sent to me so much this week that I wanted to include it

Other reading recommendations I mentioned last week:

• Welcome to the Wild World of Drug Reddit

• This book (Dreamland) about the opiate epidemic that I also loved

📱 Everything you may have missed in tech/startup news

1. OpenAI unveils ChatGPT Agent — its latest AI agent for tackling complex workflows (comes shortly after Perplexity launched its AI-infused browser, Comet!): OpenAI just rolled out ChatGPT agent, a major upgrade that lets the AI go beyond conversation to actually get full workflows done (researching online, running code, editing spreadsheets, planning events, summarizing meetings, analyzing competitors, or building a deck from scratch). Have you used it?? What do you think?

2. Fyre Festival brand sold for $245.3K on eBay (bought from Billy McFarland, who still owes $26M in restitution): I’m so intrigued to see what the new owner (whose identity is a mystery) chooses to do with it. The week-long auction attracted 175 bids from 42 participants and included everything from the festival’s trademarks and intellectual property to its social media accounts. Billy McFarland (the festival’s original organizer who served nearly four years in prison for fraud and still owes $26M in restitution) noted that the winning price was “so low” compared to his former hopes of $1 million

3. U.S. startup funding surges 75.6% in H1 2025 — the strongest since 2021 ZIRP era. Unsurprisingly, AI drives most of this: this is heavily inflated because of so many mega AI funding that have been announced, but still notable (especially in a world where a lot of VCs themselves are having trouble fundraising which has dropped 33.7% year-over-year). Also notably - exits are picking back up, with IPOs and acquisitions up 40% from last year

🤪 Just because / for fun

aka random things that I found interesting enough to screenshot or take a picture of last week

• on having an amazing support network + why that’s honestly the most valuable thing you can invest in ahead of going out on your own entrepreneurial path 🥲 — i mentioned in passing to a good friend that i’ve been trying to come up with a logo / slogan for the newsletter + broader content platform for a while to emphasize why equity is so important and i told her about some sketches i’ve been playing with (“equity but with a % in the Q so people know we’re talking about stock equity”, a slogan idea i was playing with “cash is king, but equity is empire”). 3 weeks later, this showed up at my door 🥺 (em, love you so much!) no matter how well things are going, being an entrepreneur of any sort is a lonely and exhausting journey (which many of you know because i hear from you and love commiserating with yall haha). for friends/family of entrepreneurs of any sort, know that gestures of support no matter how small (liking/commenting on posts, re-posting/sharing things with friends in group chats, being an early adopter of a product/app, etc) all means so much more than can be described !!

• a trend i’ve been excited about for a while (and the proof is in the numbers!! if you have the motivation, there has never been a better time to be a founder):

• this hits. it (the top photo which i stumbled upon randomly in my internet rabbit holes) reminds me of another passage i shared earlier from a book i read and loved (into the dream house) that i’ve re-shared below (the black text). i’m sure many of us can relate to obsessive dwelling on overanalyzing someone’s actions and something about both of these hit me at the right time in the right way and i snapped out of it — it usually doesn’t matter, and the reason is usually not more complicated than knowing that people are selfishly motivated a lot of the time 🙃 
  

  
  

<3 until next week!