everything you need to read this week by @stephthefounder (June 9)

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!

Hi to over 4000 of you! I was (delighted and) surprised to see this number when I logged in this morning considering I started sending out these just over a month ago when I hit ~1200 subscribers. Appreciate you all a lot (and honestly my favorite part of this community growing means that I also hear from more of you re interesting things you’re reading, companies that are being funded, cool apps/tech being built, etc., so thank you & please keep them coming!)

There were so many good memes this week that I couldn’t choose just 1 (honestly the most time-consuming part of this newsletter edition, lol) so here’s 1 and scroll down for more 🤪

💰 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. Obvio: AI + solar-powered hardware built to prevent traffic accidents (in a pilot they were able to reduce stop sign accidents by 50%). Raised $22 million in funding last week

   • Job openings can be found here

2. MUBI: streaming service for indie films that just closed a $100 million round led by Sequoia (!). Particularly notable because funding in media has generally been (very) down, making MUBI’s big raise a stand out in the current landscape

   • Job openings can be found here

3. Toma: an AI voice startup for car dealerships that raised $17 million (from a16z, a firm that’s been very proactive about publishing content & market maps about the space - an interesting signal!). This (verticalized AI voice agents) has been an interesting / popular space lately (see below!)

   • Job openings can be found here

Some bonus companies that were also funded last week:

• Netic (AI for home-service pros) 🛠️ → $20M raise (Job openings here)

• Prepared (AI for 911 centers) 🚑 → $80M raise (Job openings here)

• Infisical (developer secrets mgmt) 🔐 → $16M Series A (Job openings here)

🤓 Best things to read instead of doomscrolling

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

(I was inspired this weekend to go deep on reading about AI / its impact on various industries + life and here are some of the standouts (ranging from inspirational stories to academic papers to practical how-to)

1. The Anti‑Social Century by Derek Thompson (The Atlantic): more than people just being lonely - but how it impacts personalities, politics, and even how we perceive reality. One of the arguments that has really stuck with me is how the rise of tech (TV/phones etc) has hurt people getting to know their neighbors, which has in turn created a much more polarizing environment (especially politically) because people don’t have to interact with people with differing views anymore. (Made me think of Tim Urban’s book Wait but Why, another book I’ve recommended a lot that touches on changing social dynamics in society)

2. The Evidence So Far: What Research Reveals About AI’s Real Impact on Jobs and Society by AEI’s Will Rinehart: a more balanced and nuanced look at where AI is truly helping (cybersecurity, local economies) vs where it’s threatening jobs. (More nuanced/balanced than a blanket “AI is taking all jobs!!” narrative we’ve been hearing).

3. Doctors Told Him He Was Going to Die. Then A.I. Saved His Life by Kate Morgan, NYT: super interesting story — also interesting to think about how AI impacts the incentives to work on discovering new drugs vs. repurposing old ones

4. Shaping AI’s Impact on Billions of Lives by Jeff Dean, David Patterson: about how policy + industry can maximize AI impact while limiting harm

5. Beware the AI Bureaucrats by Yuval Noah Harari (the author of Sapiens), FT): how AI regulation may entrench power rather than democratize it

6. How Do We Share the Planet With This New Superintelligence? another by Yuval Noah Harari, WIRED: AI is becoming an independent agent (differing from all other tech in history where people had control) and the potential risks

7. How Will Self‑Driving Cars Transform Road Trips? by Brett Berk, WSJ) — cool article thinking about how cars will change once completely autonomous especially when it comes to long distance travel (I want one!)

8. Art and the Science of Generative AI by Ziv Epstein, Aaron Herman: how generative AI is reshaping how we make and define art

9. Anthropic’s (free and comprehensive) prompt engineering course: I’m still working through this but finally bit the bullet after I was sent this so much

📱 Everything you may have missed in tech/startup news

1. Circle (stablecoins) IPO explodes; stock has soared 4× since launch day (!!): an interesting sign not only for stablecoins (video coming soon) but also interesting sign to watch as it encourages more and more IPOs (speaking of which, Gemini (crypto exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins!) files for IPO)

2. Elon vs Trump feud heats up 🍿: The title of the BBC’s article “Trump says relationship with Musk is over” had me howling

3. Meta rumored to invest $10B in Scale AI 😱 - Mary Meeker’s AI Trends report published last week talks a lot about big tech investing in AI infra and this is a trend to watch!

🤪 Just because / for fun

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

• there were honestly so many hilarious memes from the elon v trump episode that this whole newsletter could’ve just been memes, so i had to rein myself in, but:

• as a neurotically fast walker i have never felt more validated in my entire life:

• i’ve included this place before bc of a private event i went to hosted here, but if you’re an audiophile in NYC (or if you like tea/records/a cool place with a cool ambiance in NYC lol) i highly recommend checking out silence please! (a hybrid speaker studio, listening room, tea bar, record store, etc etc in a beautiful space. i feel lucky a place like this exists in the city!)

• i went to a16z’s office during tech week for a meeting and had never missed being a venture capitalist until I saw their FRIDGE of DRINKS galore (if i win the lottery i won’t tell anyone but there will be signs…). ty to the kind new a16z teammate who took this (very uncool) photo of me bc of how excited I was, lol
  
  ironically right around the block from their office i spotted a guy with a ‘anti tech week social club’ shirt and honestly as an ambivert who hates going to (but is supportive of) big events -- I WANT 🤪😬

• no pics because i was ~too immersed in the experience~, but i also went to my first reading rhythms event this week after hearing about it for over a year! reading rhythms is basically a giant reading party with silent reading time (everyone brings their own book to read) + intermittent breakout groups, and beyond NYC they’ve also expanded to other cities! my favorite part about this was getting other book recs (some that I picked up because of this event — Recursion by Blake Crouch, My Body by Emrata, The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry)

❤️ until next week!