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Bill Gurley: Jaron Lanier in The New York Times
Bill Gurley called a New York Times opinion piece by Jaron Lanier "another 'must read' AI article." He said Lanier "speaks with experience" about Silicon Valley's habit of imagining what its technology can do, "to the point of radicalism" . In Gurley's account, Lanier lays out Anthropic's "unusual & error-prone approach to safety." Gurley traces that approach to a belief that AI will one day run the world and "manage the humans," which leads the company to rely on "alignment" rather than "control & constraint" .
Gurley then makes his own case: Anthropic should be kept "as far away from the regulation process as possible." If it gets to write the rules, he warns, it "will try to kill open-models" . Article
Guillermo Rauch: Triumph of the Nerds
On the Human Verified podcast, Guillermo Rauch recommended Triumph of the Nerds. It's a documentary about the early days of Silicon Valley and the beginnings of Microsoft and Apple, and he has been showing it to his kids. He noted that its maker recently died . What stuck with him was the film's point that founders of that era "needed adult supervision" and rarely stayed on as CEO. He contrasted that with Paul Graham's model of giving technical founders full control. He also suggested the defining founder trait is changing again now that agents write the code . He also called the movie Bison Man "required watching," because his six-year-old is obsessed with it . Video
A former Tesla president's three giveaway books
In "The Impossible Speed of Elon Musk," the former Tesla president being interviewed named the books he recommends most consistently :
- The Goal by Eli Goldratt, for learning operations principles. He said it "totally changed my life" .
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, if you want "a life worth living" .
- Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara. It's a book about running a restaurant, but he hands it to businesspeople because giving people hospitality and dignity applies to almost everything: "if you make customers feel that way, you're going to sell a lot of product" .
Shorter picks
- Brian Armstrong quoted a post by @JLunglhofer and summed it up: "The way to combat AI cybersecurity attacks is to use more AI on defense" . The post describes how Coinbase uses early access to frontier models and agents that test its code to find vulnerabilities more cheaply. It argues defenders have an edge because they can give AI full context on the system it protects, while warning that the edge "won't last" . Post
- Martin Casado called a demo by @neilsonks "so so good" . The demo shows Blender 5.3's new gaussian-splat support, which @neilsonks says gets closer to an "insane one-of-a-kind world model workflow" . Post
- Tim Sweeney promoted Will Faucher's EasyWaterscape demo as "a new age of game development." It shows the Unreal Engine 5.9 preview, which brings AI-acceleration improvements ported from Unreal Engine 6 and new support for playing games in the browser . Faucher says the demo runs at 60fps on high settings in Chrome .
- Jason Lemkin re-shared his SaaStr AI deep dive with Higgsfield CEO Alex Mashrabov on how the company reached $600M ARR. Since then, he says, it has passed $1B and is on track for $2B by December. Lemkin notes he is an investor . Video
- Ben Horowitz shared a new podcast episode that includes the story of how Felicia Horowitz saved Scarface's life . Video
The interview guest says these are the books he has recommended most consistently: The Goal by Eli Goldratt for learning operations principles, including leading operations; The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, which had a major impact on him; and Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara, which he says applies to business and life—the practice of making people feel hospitality and dignity can help a business sell more.
- Guillermo Rauch recommended Bison Man as “required watching,” noting that one of his children is obsessed with the movie.
- Rauch also recommended Triumph of the Nerds, which he was introducing to his children as a movie about early Silicon Valley and the beginnings of Microsoft and Apple; he called it “really cool.”
Jason Lemkin shared a video clip from his conversation with Lenny Rachitsky on Lenny’s Podcast, recounting how a company he invested in fell from $5 million to $1 million after its founders fired the sales team because they thought sales was “icky”—a warning about the revenue cost of founders’ aversion to sales.
Bill Gurley (@bgurley) called a linked New York Times AI opinion article featuring Jaron Lanier a “must read,” praising Lanier’s experienced critique of Silicon Valley’s radical expectations for technology; Gurley highlights Lanier’s criticism of Anthropic’s safety approach as rooted in the belief that AI will one day run the world and “manage the humans.” Read the article.
Jason Lemkin shared a SaaStr AI deep-dive video he did with Higgsfield CEO Alex Mashrabov about how the company reached $600M ARR; he highlighted that he later updated the thumbnail to $1B ARR and said Higgsfield was on track for $2B by December. Watch the video. Lemkin said he was among Higgsfield’s first customers and investors.
Brian Armstrong endorsed @JLunglhofer’s X post by arguing that AI cyberattacks should be countered with more AI on defense; the post says Coinbase uses frontier models and code-testing agents to find vulnerabilities at lower cost, and that defenders can give AI the system context it is protecting—an advantage the post cautions may not last. Linked post.
Jason Lemkin (@jasonlk) promotes a free guide to AI Sales Agents, linking to the guide and to more information about AI agents; he gives no stated reason or takeaway for the guide.
Elon Musk called code associated with @tetsuoai “tight”; he said superintelligence will eventually write a better software stack, but has not yet, and the post mentions some assembly.
Jason Lemkin linked a SaaStr article about Anthropic employee equity, highlighting the post’s claim that employees hold about $216B at the IPO price, with another $160B reserved for future hires; he framed the resulting stock as a talent-competition challenge for B2B founders.
Ben Horowitz shared a YouTube link to a new podcast that includes the story of how Felicia Horowitz saved Scarface’s life; the post does not name the podcast’s creator or give a reason beyond that hook. YouTube
Jason Lemkin points readers to a free guide to AI Sales Agents: https://saastr.ai/ai-agents-playbook.
Martin Casado praised @neilsonks’s post, calling it “so so good.” The post says Blender 5.3’s Gaussian-splat support brings an “insane one-of-a-kind world model workflow” closer and includes a video.
Tim Sweeney promoted Will Faucher’s EasyWaterscape playable demo, linking to Faucher’s post and praising Unreal Engine 5.9 as “a new age of game development.” Faucher’s demo showcases the game running in a browser; Sweeney highlighted 5.9’s browser-play support and AI-acceleration improvements.