everything you need to read this week by @stephthefounder (May 12th)

Hi to 600+ of you who signed up since last week 🥺🫶

The pope memes were the internet gem of last week. Some of my favorites:

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!

💰 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. NewLimit:

   • biotech company working on reversing human aging (and co-founded by co-founder/CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong!). If this topic of longevity interests you, I also highly recommend the book ‘’Lifespan’’. Raised $130M this week.

   • Job openings can be found here

2. Wonder:

   • a cloud kitchen startup run by repeat founder (and Jet.com founder - co that exited to Walmart for $3B+) that lets you mix and match meals from top restaurants and famous chefs, all in one order. Raised $600M this week.

   • Job openings can be found here

3. Trilobio:

   • biotech company that's shaking up lab work by building a smart, all-in-one system with robots, tools, and software to handle every part of the research process automatically, to make it easier for biologists to set up and run experiments. Raised $8M this week.

   • Job openings can be found here

🤓 Best things to read instead of doomscrolling

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

1. Stamina Succeeds by Robin Hanson - on why having a lot of energy seems to correlate with highly successful people. I think this applies broadly, but I’ve thought about this a lot personally as it relates to entrepreneurship - a founder friend once talked about how people in tech focus on cash runway, but should be more thoughtful about ‘emotional runway’ (aka stamina 😅). I’m thinking about how to get more of this (particularly better health & wellness for me which has fallen back in priorities over the last couple years).

2. Experts and Elites Play Fundamentally Different Games by Rob Henderson (h/t @mattprusak) - a really good articulation of the difference between experts (people with knowledge, experience, etc.) and elites (people with influence, taste, etc.), how people cross the chasm between them, their dynamic with each other, etc.

3. Patrick Collison’s interview with Jony Ive (the legendary former Chief Design Officer @Apple). How and why joy, a “spiritual connection between maker and consumer”, and purpose are important for product design. (”If something doesn’t work, it’s ugly—function and aesthetics aren’t opposed. Taste is trickier, but I believe people can sense care (and certainly carelessness)”)

4. The Most Valuable Commodity in the World of Friction by Kyla Scanlon - loved this essay about three separate worlds that have been created - the digital, physical, and curated - and how ‘friction’ (real-world effort) is a signal to pay attention to. “Friction isn’t the enemy—it’s information. It tells us where things are straining and where care is needed.”

5. For Fun: Why I broke up with New York by Lena Dunham - an interesting read, especially in comparison to the viral: ‘’It must be nice to be a West Village girl’’ article

6. My favorite meme this week:

📱 Everything you may have missed in tech/startup news

1. OpenAI Reaches Agreement to Buy Startup Windsurf for $3 Billion buys Windsurf (AI coding tool) - extra notable because it’s the company’s largest acquisition to date. Also interesting signal for all the other AI coding tools + the value of AI apps in general

2. Warren Buffett retires and warns about trade war consequences: the legendary investor retires after 60 years and has some powerful warnings! ‘’It’s obvious that the country needs major reinvestment and re thinking…’’

3. OpenAI stays a nonprofit (a win for Elon, who’s still suing)

🤪 Just because / for fun

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

• y’all loved my video on ChatGPT prompts for personal growth and you can find them here — hope to constantly update this with more as I find good ones! (DM me any that you’ve found to be helpful as well!)

• a very cool platform launched today called Shibuya film! Founded by Emily Yang (also known as pplpleasr - a talented friend who I admire), Shibuya is basically a Netflix meets Kickstarter where you can watch pilots to films and fund ones you want to see future episodes for. I’m excited about any platforms that disrupt gatekeepers (to capital, distribution, etc) and I was lucky enough to see their 5 films last night at their launch event in NYC (which you can also watch (for free) on their website linked above). Loved them all, but will say “Don’t Forget About Me” hit me especially hard!! (Also hosted at Silence Please, a listening room that’s been on my bucket list for a while and wow wow wow did it exceed expectations!)

• one of my favorite chapters (‘stop; being so kind to future you’) so far from the book Meditations for Mortals which I’ve recommended many times before (on planning for the future, but not to the detriment of your current self)

• my dad and i grew up watching shark tank together so this was a fun thing to wake up to this morning! considering my dad’s normal response is “ok” or 👍, i take his response to mean he was also very excited about this, lol

❤️ until next week!