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Elad Gil and Sarah Guo: Built to Grow, by @she_travels
Built to Grow is a new sales handbook from Stripe Press. Two investors endorsed it on the same day. Elad Gil wrote that he was "so excited" for it and linked to it on Amazon . Sarah Guo gave a more specific reason. For more than a decade she has coached strong product builders through their first stretch of B2B sales and marketing, and she wishes the book "had existed sooner for me to gift." She also called it "an education" and praised its "beautiful design" .
Paul Graham and Garry Tan: Eric Rea on rebuilding Podium around AI
Podium cofounder Eric Rea posted that his company has reached $150M ARR twice. The first time took 8 years and the second took 2.5. Podium has now crossed $150M in AI annual recurring revenue. Three years ago the company had well over $100M in revenue, but it chose to "start over." It bet its future on AI employees that do the work for customers rather than protect the software it had built over a decade.
Paul Graham said established companies will at best adapt to AI while new startups start out AI-native. He called Podium "an interesting example of a company in the middle" that remade itself as AI-native "by great effort." He also called it an example of founder mode: a hired CEO, he argued, wouldn't have the moral authority, or probably wouldn't care enough, to ignore existing revenue and refocus on AI. Garry Tan shared it as "what it looks like when it *really* hits."
Patrick Collison: Arc Institute preprint on the genome's "dark matter"
Collison shared a new Arc Institute preprint thread from @pdhsu. The work uses latent-space representations of genomes from single-cell life to find new candidate functional RNAs. The preprint uses genome language models and AI agents. It targets the RNA-encoding stretches between protein-coding genes, which conventional computational tools struggle with. Collison said he thinks it is "cool" for three reasons:
- It puts deep learning and model interpretability to productive use on a different kind of knowledge.
- It shows how agents might speed up discovery in huge combinatorial search spaces.
- It is an early example of computational methods working together with wet-lab biology.
Brad Gerstner: "Why we invested in Arda"
Gerstner pointed followers to a post by @apoorv03 that links the investment memo. He also called Arda a "killer team" working to make US manufacturing the best in the world. Arda was founded by Bob McGrew, and the memo gives three reasons for investing:
- McGrew has been preparing for this mission for at least two decades.
- The mission is one that "MUST be pursued."
- The plan is sequenced well: first software for manufacturing engineers, then robotic lines that update as fast as the design does.
For readers who prefer video, the memo links a CNBC conversation with McGrew.
a16z podcast: the film Digger
In a16z's Frontier conversation with Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and Chris Dixon, one speaker said he is "completely obsessed" with Digger. The transcript doesn't name the speaker. His advice is to sit through it even though you will be tempted to walk out after the first half hour: there is "a reason why they did what they did," and the film is "very clever." He also used it to make a business point. The film lost about $200M on a roughly $180M budget, and he argued that on an AI-enabled $2M budget it "would have been insanely profitable."
Shorter mentions
- Guillermo Rauch cited the book Running with the Kenyans. He described Kenyan marathoners who start races faster than seems possible, which sets a new pace and teaches them they could have gone faster. He tries to bring that idea into the standard he sets at work (interview).
- Brian Chesky named the industrial designer Charles Eames, whom he studied at RISD, as one of his favorite designers. He quoted Eames's line that a designer is "a very thoughtful host anticipating the needs of their guest" and used it to describe Airbnb's role: "We set the conditions for magic" (interview).
A discussion participant recommends watching Digger through its first half-hour, despite its initially off-putting, comical presentation: the full movie is “very clever” and a notable creative achievement.
Marc Andreessen said he was “completely obsessed” with the film Digger and advised viewers to stay past its first half-hour: although the opening may tempt them to leave, the full film reveals why it was made that way, which he called “very clever.” He cited a friend and her mother leaving early as an example.
Guillermo Rauch drew on Running with the Kenyans while discussing his approach to fitness and work: he recalled Kenyan marathoners setting a seemingly inconceivable early pace to establish a new standard and show they could go faster.
Brian Chesky called industrial designer Charles Eames one of his favorite designers, said he studied him at RISD, and quoted Eames’s description of a designer as “a very thoughtful host anticipating the needs of their guest” while explaining Airbnb’s host-like role in creating the conditions for meaningful experiences (interview).
Patrick Collison called Arc Institute’s new work “cool”: a preprint using genome language models and AI agents for biological discovery and genome mining, including latent-space representations of genomes from single-cell life to identify candidate functional RNAs. He linked the announcement. He highlighted deep learning and model interpretability applied to a different kind of knowledge, agents’ potential to accelerate discovery in vast combinatorial spaces, and the prospective synergy between computational methods and wet-lab biology.
Bill Gates offered a broad endorsement—not a named title—of Harari’s writing about the past, calling it eloquent while reflecting on historical shortages, disease, and war.
Paul Graham highlighted Eric Rea’s post about Podium’s AI shift as an “interesting example” of an established company remaking itself as AI-native, contrasting established companies adapting to AI with new startups built AI-native from the start. Rea’s post says Podium crossed $150M in AI ARR after deciding to start over and bet its existing software business on AI employees.
Sarah Guo praised Built to Grow, a new Stripe Press book by @she_travels, saying she wished it had existed sooner to gift to product builders she has coached through the initial ramp of B2B sales and marketing for more than a decade . She later called the book “an education” and praised its design .
Garry Tan highlighted @ericwilliamrea’s X post as an example of AI “really” transforming SaaS; the post reports Podium reached $150M in AI ARR in 2.5 years, compared with eight years for its first $150M ARR business.
Elad Gil endorsed Built to Grow, calling it a new book by @she_travels and saying he was “So excited” about it . He shared an Amazon link to buy it .
Brad Gerstner directed followers to an X post by @apoorv03 linking to the article “Why we invested in Arda”, using a “👇👇” reply. In the same thread, Gerstner praised Arda as a “killer team” working to make US manufacturing the best in the world, saying greater resilience and productivity are good for America. The article’s investment case emphasizes founder Bob McGrew’s preparation, the mission, and a sequenced plan: manufacturing software first, robotic lines next. It also points readers who prefer video to a CNBC conversation with McGrew and @Kr00ney (watch).
Brian Armstrong called @base’s post about @aave bringing lending and borrowing to tokenized stocks on Base a “good case study” of crypto updating financial services, increasingly on Base.
Satya Nadella directed followers to read an article about data and AI agents at TK Elevator. He said the technology gives service technicians access to decades of shared knowledge, helping them spend less time searching for answers and more time keeping elevators and escalators running; he did not state a separate reason for recommending the article.
Jason Lemkin promoted the new 20VC x SaaStr piece “$20M ARR and Unfundable” (link); its hook is a $20M ARR company growing 7× that cannot get a meeting, with Lemkin highlighting that capital is going to fewer names and seed is harder than growth.
Satya Nadella called Microsoft’s research published in Science “important work,” highlighting its diagnostic orchestrator’s ability to reason through complex medical cases with greater accuracy and lower testing costs . He linked to Mustafa Suleyman’s post about the research: https://x.com/mustafasuleyman/status/2113332931423039945 .
Elon Musk replied “True” to @TheCaptainEli’s account of Starbase’s growth and public, iterative rocket development, affirming a post that introduces the creator’s short film about Starbase; Musk gave no separate rationale. Watch the film.
Palmer Luckey linked and praised JD Vance’s video on H-1B visas, saying Vance was putting facts and statistics front and center. Vance said H-1B workers earn $20,000 less than U.S. citizens hired in the same position, and workers brought in by foreign outsourcing firms earn $48,000 less in a similar position. Luckey recommended it amid his argument that visa-program abuse lets companies replace American workers for less money; he said business leaders stay silent for fear of attacks from both political sides.
Palmer Luckey enthusiastically amplified Marathon Fusion’s X post, calling alchemy’s “millennia-enduring allure” irreplaceable and saying it was “an incredible time to be alive”; the linked post claims Marathon Fusion turned mercury into stable gold, beating CERN’s record by a factor of 10.
Martin Casado reacted “!!!!!! Exciting !!!!!!” while linking to Kimi Moonshot’s post , which contains a video with no identifying description in the supplied text . His enthusiasm is the only stated rationale.
Marc Benioff endorsed Jason D. Clinton’s linked X post (“Jason is 100% right. Code red”), which urges security leaders to seek board help for basic security—not AI—as conditions worsen, and says they need to hold on for about 18 months.
