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everything you need to read this week by @stephthefounder (June 16)

Author

Steph Mui
June 16, 2025

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!

Happy Monday!

Big theme of last week in tech was ✨exits / liquidity for equity holders in startups✨:

  • ScaleAI exit to Meta for $14B+ for 49%

  • OpenAI current/former employees have cashed in $3B in secondaries so far (reported by The Information - see below)

  • Chime IPO’d, popped 35%+, and is valued at billions of dollars (early investors did well; some of the later stage investors are in the red still)

Given all the conversation about AI talent wars especially among the biggest tech companies, I suspect this is just the beginning 🙃

💰 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. Shinkei Systems: a seafood robotics startup that uses robotics + computer vision to use a more ethical fish harvesting tchnique (inspired by the Japanese ike jime method). The result of this is less waste (2/3 fish caught don’t actually make it to consumers…) + higher quality fish (less stress on the animal which also means more flavorful fish). They raised a $22M Series A to expand both its tech and its consumer brand, aiming to make Michelin-quality seafood more widely available!

  2. Somnee: essentially a WHOOP for sleep — aka a sleep headband that uses EEG + AI tech to help users fall asleep faster + improve sleep quality. Strong technical team with promising clinical trials in a huge market (people spend $$$$ to solve sleep problems). Raised $10 million in funding to bring its neurotech wearable to more users, including pro athletes and wellness partners

  3. Turnkey: founded by ex-Coinbase operators, the team just raised a $30 million Series B. The company acts like how Plaid/Stripe do but for crypto wallets - allowing companies to easily embed crypto wallet functionality while also making it easier for users to access (i.e. not having to fumble around with seed phrases).

Some bonus companies that were also funded last week:

  • AIM (autonomous heavy machinery) 🚜 → $50M (Job openings here)

  • PostHog (product analytics) 📊 → $70M Series D (Job openings here)

  • Glean (AI enterprise search) 🔍 → $150M Series F ($7.2B val) (Job openings here)

  • Linear (developer workflow tools) 🛠️ → $82M Series C ($1.25B val) (Job openings here)

  • Arketa (wellness studio software) 🧘 → $15M Series A (Job openings here)

  • Anysphere (AI code assistant Cursor) 🤖 → $900M round ($9.9B val) (Job openings here)

🤓 Best things to read instead of doomscrolling

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

  1. Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address – I find a lot of tech interviews and inspirational speeches to be cliche and somewhat performative, but I’ve listened to this probably 2 dozen times throughout my life and think this is a revered and famous speech for very good reason. This week marked the 20 year anniversary of this iconic speech so it deserved an extra watch + acknowledgment this week 🙃

  2. The Gervais Principle by Venkatesh Rao – a framework to understanding office politics using The Office as a metaphor (sociopaths, clueless, losers 🤪). Including this given so many of you really enjoyed my previous post about how to climb the corporate ladder inspired by Jeffrey Pfeffer’s book Power

  3. My Dad’s Friendship With Charles Barkley – (warning: tear jerker 😭) the story of an unlikely friendship between legendary basketball player Charles Barkley & Lin, a cat litter scientist from Iowa (written by Lin’s daughter, Shirley Wang). Feels extra precious to share given father’s day, and also made me think about one of the articles I shared last week (”the Anti-Social Currency”) that talked about the large decline in people befriending their neighbors + anyone who doesn’t align 100% with one’s world view (and therefore the decline of healthy discourse + tolerance for disagreement in our modern world) which makes this feel extra special!

  4. How L.A. Raids Ignited a New Fight Over Immigration (NYT) – I’m still processing and educating myself on the ICE raids and the events of this past week, and it feels shallow to share just one piece given the heaviness and importance of what’s going on, but felt like sharing at least one (vs ignoring it all together out of fear of not addressing it enough/perfectly) was necessary

  5. They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling by Kashmir Hill (NYT) – this went viral this week for good reason. Wild stories.

📱 Everything you may have missed in tech/startup news

  1. Meta buys Scale AI in a $14.3B deal to dominate AI infra : Meta is buying a 49% nonvoting stake in Scale AI, valuing it at $29B, and essentially acqui-hiring the team + licensing its technology. (Scale’s CEO Alexander Wang will lead Meta’s new superintelligence lab, for example.) There’s likely more to come from this story including a) is this creative deal structure enough to avoid antitrust regulator scrutiny of big tech acquisitions, and b) other big tech companies like Google (Scale’s biggest customer) are cutting ties - signaling opportunity from other companies to pick up that spend & highlighting the intense competition among big tech companies right now

  2. OnlyFans is looking for buyers, and might sell for 75% less than peak valuation: an interesting story all around about how OF is heavily undervalued (despite its incredible cash flow) because 1) there are already limited buyers who can take on a $8B+ acquisition, 2) few investors/acquirers want to be associated with this industry, 3) there’s concern about increased competition from AI + companies like X

  3. Chime IPO pops 37%, now worth $13.5B: If you’re interested in equity/understanding some of the mechanics, highly recommend this article from The Information which breaks down Chime as an example. Chime IPO’d last week (successful! 37% pop, worth billions) but is interesting to see that there are some winners (early investors) and some losers. Timing, valuation, dilution etc are all underrated elements to understanding the value of equity (see below)

  4. Apple WWDC 2025: liquid glass & AI: mixed reactions on announcements (tech twitter skewed very negative because of much higher expectations for the AI features; consumers on tiktok skewed more positive on things like the liquid glass design). Interesting especially in the context of Jony Ive joining OpenAI recently and there being rumors of an AI device coming. Thoughts on Apple long term??

🤪 Just because / for fun

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

  • happy father’s day! i was lucky enough to spend mine with my dad with great dim sum (iykyk 🙃)

  • i finally won tickets in the lottery to see Dorian Gray on broadway this week (one of my biggest and most underrated nyc tips - so many broadway shows have lotteries for tickets every night) and it was incredible! Sarah Snook is so talented, and i was blown away by the stage, use of props/visuals, etc.

  • i don’t know where this came from, but i stumbled upon it and i love it

❤️ until next week!