anand iyer

Founder Canonical · We back, build, incubate early-stage companies · Venture Partner Lightspeed · Few-shotting tech, open source

[anand iyer @ai]

Founders and VCs often treat low valuations as a red flag, a signal that something is fundamentally wrong. Venture runs on momentum and pattern recognition. So if a valuation is notably low, the market assumes thin competition, that other investors passed, or the team lacked the leverage to command a higher valuation.

But at the formative stages, there’s likely no revenue or utility to substantiate any valuation. It’s a mathematical output of how much cash the team needs and how much equity they’re giving up. That’s it.

[anand iyer @ai]

We are shifting to a world built around agents.

https://t.co/LicCZc6Wdq

[anand iyer @ai]

A third of Berkeley's intro CS students failed this spring. The reflex is to say coding is dead anyway, so who cares.

The irony is they're failing linear algebra, which is the mathematical engine behind all LLMs and GenAI. AI practically runs on linear algebra.

https://t.co/cRleQr7J9R

[anand iyer @ai]

It's crazy to look back at the ads from the "Get a Mac" era. Microsoft went from being mocked as the boring office computer to building seriously cool powerhouse hardware for AI.

[Microsoft Surface @surface]

Introducing - Surface RTX Spark Dev Box.

All the power developers need, right out of the box.

Sign up to learn more: https://t.co/DF0DvEvhOz

Surface RTX Spark Dev Box. Built for more.

[anand iyer @ai]

Formula for robotic startup success: find a large, highly fragmented industry with low NPS; vertically integrate a robotics solution to simplify the value chain.

[Keith Rabois @rabois]

Formula for startup success: Find large highly fragmented industry w low NPS; vertically integrate a solution to simplify value product.

[dar @radbackwards]

The amount of times you are about to hear the word: “robots” for the next decade is going to be ridiculous

[swyx @swyx]

whoah - Grace + Blackwell chips in a laptop.

@Microsoft + @NVIDIA teaming up to take on 6 years of total dominance of Apple Silicon

[Jay Yu 🐟 @0xfishylosopher]

One of the best essays I've seen on the Pre-IPO and "tokenized startups" scene.

I remember there was a @bgurley quote from not too long ago that the IPO cycle has been "hijacked" by growth equity.

The door is open today to reinvent the IPO, and reinvent what it means for everyday investors to get exposure to the most exciting companies of our era. Tokenization, Pre-IPO perps, SPVs, Closed-End-Funds are all natural market reactions in this directions.

In the last year or so, TGE tokens have been going through an identity crisis. Reinventing the IPO may well become generational mission for tokens. The road is long, but as long as we march with purpose we will get there.

[The Tennessee Holler @TheTNHoller]

CONAN AT HARVARD: “No university in our nation has produced more Nobel laureates or white collar criminals… so whether you choose good or evil, know that you are among the very best.”

[peter @peternoszek]

SuperAI speaker list.

Spot who’s flying in from SF/NY/Boston vs Shanghai/Beijing/SZ.

[Brandon Carl @brandonjcarl]

Earnings Before Tokens

[Chris Paxton @chris_j_paxton]

A new blog post on robot hands:
- why they are hard to build and why there are no good ones
- why we probably need them anyway
- what the trade offs are
- a random sampling of startups and research papers in the space

[anand iyer @ai]

@pitdesi @stats_feed This could be Airbnb or Tinder.

[anand iyer @ai]

Give it a whirl:

https://t.co/3Db1PTo4EA

[anand iyer @ai]

Every GP I know runs their fund model through an inherited Excel sheet. Half the formulas are broken, the assumptions tab are a mess, and every new vintage just adds another sheet on top.

We vibecoded a clean fund modeler. Plug in fund size, check sizes, reserves, fees, and recycling. TVPI, DPI, MOIC, IRR, and the J-curve update live.

Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is saved or logged. Export a CSV of the results for your data room. Session state is saved in the URL if you need to come back to it.

[anand iyer @ai]

Putting up the bat signal @pitdesi

Only you can save us.

[anand iyer @ai]

The added benefit of having kids is that they force you to model good behavior.
When they start acting like assholes, you know exactly who the model was.

[anand iyer @ai]

@TMTLongShort They all sit in different portions of the stack. But solving the lithography chokepoint matters more than owning a chip company, IMHO. We mapped it out here:

https://t.co/bgVDC2qKy8

[anand iyer @ai]

@nvidianewsroom So good

[anand iyer @ai]

@earthtojake That is sick