Ash Rust

First check investor: 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇪🇺. Past: Oxford, YC.

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

Robotics will Reward the Boring and Dangerous

We are about to witness the steady flow of robotics into our everyday lives. This presents a huge opportunity for founders interested in solving boring or dangerous problems.

1. It’s already here. Self driving car services like Waymo and food delivery robots like Serve were the first mainstream products. Plus over 19k humanoid robots have already been sold this year. The wave is coming.

2. Use cases. Robotics can help humans across literally millions of use cases from the boring to the outright dangerous, from emptying the dishwasher to fixing underwater communication cables.

3. Intelligence commoditized. If commercial and open source models can offer roughly similar performance, that makes physical AI a huge opportunity for new founders - you get the superintelligence part for free!

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

@ToddSullivan Yes but it’s work and only something ai started doing recently… https://t.co/7EtiJWiapy

[Khaled @dsog]

@AshRust Yes. The best way is to use their tools yourself before they use it against you. https://t.co/yPwdhEn5cc

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

The AI Security Apocalypse Is Here

This week brought the news that PHP, the most used programming language on the web, has urgent security loopholes that AI can now easily discover and exploit. And this has been happening for a while, with AI-enabled breaches up 56% year over year. Ultimately, AI makes anyone a potential hacker if they choose to be one.

The PHP bugs also provided a frightening preview of how our species will behave during these times - badly. The security embargo on these exploits failed: Amazon detected an attempt four days before the disclosure and Cloudflare saw thousands of attempts in the hours leading up to the public announcement. If we can't rely on the security community's infrastructure, we're on our own.

So what can you do? The baseline is an industry-leading password manager like 1Password, with a minimum of two-factor authentication but ideally passkeys. You need to be fastidious about software updates across the board, on all devices used by your family and any servers you control.

If you run websites and apps, you should have your coding agents conduct regular security reviews and use alternative models to perform 'adversarial' reviews. I also recommend using a 'skill' like gstack's CSO review on a weekly basis to stay on top of potential risks. And if you're running an agent, you can also have it regularly check the news for hacking risks against your software stack.

The world's cybersecurity landscape is changing rapidly and it doesn't seem like anyone is coming to save us. Protection from AI is your own responsibility.

"I say your civilization, because as soon as we started thinking for you it really became our civilization" - Agent Smith, The Matrix (1999).

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

@wmarybeard Please visit San Francisco!

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

@ToddSullivan attacks are easier than defense, as attacks only have to work once, defense needs to be 100% successful.

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

How to Make a Great Startup Demo

I review dozens of demos a week. Most mistakes fall into three buckets:
1. Too long. You have about 30 seconds.
2. Live instead of video. Bugs happen.
3. Too complicated. Anyone should understand it.

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

@kane @GavinNewsom Am I misreading this? It says 70% don’t have voting history, are you inferring the other 30% voted?

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

@abarrallen @zanehengsperger VC trampoline dodgeball is something we can all agree on.

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

@ojoshe I still remember my interview with you, where you asked which was my favorite language and I said PHP, because "it's training for life".

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

@kane @GavinNewsom Any records of anyone actually voting?

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

(Periodic Reminder) We invest up to $150k at the idea stage.

We’re often the first check and usually decide in the first meeting. We’re looking for hard tech founders who want to build for the US market.

And you don’t need an introduction, you can apply on the website and it reaches me directly.

[Sterling Road @sterlingroadvc]

Warfare has changed in recent years and Western militaries are ill-prepared.

@9Mothers provides drone defense for troops and vehicles and is already the market leader. If you want to help solve this problem, they're hiring for a role working with the CEO: https://t.co/Xo5FSzythJ

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

@LoveCodeTrade @paultoo Unfortunately, the govt has already stated they found widespread fraud only to walk it back. That makes it difficult to believe later fraud claims https://t.co/0iugj2w4Z7

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

@PhilipJohnston @saranormous I beat the odds!

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

Oftentimes, the easiest way to grow is to reduce your customer churn.

[Sterling Road @sterlingroadvc]

Founder Tip: Customer success starts right after the sale.

If you invest in customer retention from the first moment, you’ll save yourself a lot of churn.

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

@nic_carter @politicalmath @grok did Biden promise to pardon everyone in his admin? What is Nic talking about?

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

@NEETzscheIDDQD @grok how much of this is true?

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

@AcrossPlanes @politicalmath Russia sanctions were 86-11. Plenty of bipartisan causes everyone can get behind.

[Ash Rust @AshRust]

I spent the last 7 days in 4 different states and:

- United and Delta both have terrible wifi.
- Lots of folks are bragging about *not* using AI.
- SF has the best food in the country but I do love the cured meats in NYC.