Irin Son

Community @founders_cafe & Head of People @AngelList

[Irin Son @irinson]

This captures what makes @founders_cafe and SF so special ❤️

Thanks for visiting @levelsio

[Irin Son @irinson]

This captures what makes @founders_cafe and SF so special ❤️

Thanks for visiting @levelsio

[@levelsio @levelsio]

✨ After asking where to work in San Francisco because the cafes were so unworkable the very friendly @hoopcutter + @DesignWithAllie contacted us to invite us to work at @AngelList's @founders_cafe so we got a Waymo (yes!) and went there

There we also met the very nice and smart @luisgnet @flotemer @quasa0

We worked a bit and then of course we went out for steak after at a restaurant called Lillie Coit's, and it was really good steak

It's fun you can drop into SF and meet people so fast (of course with a little help from X) and also you really observe the level of conversations here are very high IQ, it's like you feel you were starved off high IQ convos and when you finally have it, it feels like ice water in your brain, just what a joy to meet people who actually know their stuff

Obviously this will sound super pretentious, but in the rest of the world you spent 50% of the conversations just informing people on the latest developments in tech and health and then after that you can finally talk about what's actually going on

In SF you skip all that because everybody already knows what you're talking about and you go straight to what it's about, similar to being in big cities in China btw

People talk about biohacking, dissolvable peptides, retatrutide (of course), recursive self-improvement and world models

But to be honest I think you can get that by just being on @X too, you don't have to be in SF for that, but it is nice sometimes to have those conversations not in a X thread but actually in a room with real people IRL!

The complete lack of workable cafes in SF also made me think, like I know why it is, it's the natural tension between the more lefty locals and the techies, and the locals don't necessarily want to serve techies, they want to serve locals and improve local SF culture, which is the ironic tension of SF because all the money comes from tech of course

But that also made me think in seeing the rest of the world try emulate Silicon Valley with their super cheesy incubators and coworking spaces and startup ecosystem bs that never ever has worked out for any country. SF doesn't even have cafes to work yet they have trillion dollar companies created here in the last few years

Like it's obviously not about having a coworking space, or cafes to work from, because SF doesn't really have any good ones, it's all about regulation and how easy you make it to start a business, raise money, hire people and giving those people stock options, and then grow the company and hopefully make it big (0.1% to 1% odds) and then everyone early gets rich too

Another thing I saw which was rather ironic that a lot of the people we met are bootstrapping in SF. I thought if you live in SF it makes most sense to raise money because it's 1) expensive to live here, 2) the whole value is the connections to raise or invest? But they say they're here for getting connections and customers, interesting for sure and you wouldn't see that 10 years ago, so bootstrapping has definitely entered the modern startup founder's mind, which is great to see!

[Irin Son @irinson]

@jonaasw1 @majamediaco @ansonlin @0xnichy @covacut @ettinger for writing 💖

[Irin Son @irinson]

@founders_cafe and @AngelList is excited to partner with @thecollectiv3e 💖

Congrats on the launch @jonaasw1 @maggiexgao!!

[Jonas @jonaasw1]

Today we're officially launching @thecollectiv3e.

Billion-dollar companies don’t come from ideas alone. They come from access to people and resources at the right time.

We’ve built The Collective to be a space for ambitious young people to supercharge their life’s work.

Over the last year, we've met thousands of the most talented young builders - people who are carving their own paths and aren't afraid to do things the unconventional way.

In the last 6 months alone:
- $15M+ raised by members
- $2M+ in revenue driven for members
- 5+ companies launched

Up until this point we've been 100% in person - we’ve never even had a group chat.

Today we're sharing the platform we've built to directly address pain points we keep hearing - hiring, finding co-founders, fundraising, distribution, and more.

Members will get access to:
- our talent pool + directory
- regular member-only events
- a private member portal + Slack
- warm intro concierge to partners
- $500K+ in perks (@stripe, @ElevenLabs, etc.)

Currently accepting:
- Founders (any stage)
- Top talent open to startup work
- Operators, creators, and freelancers
- Select investors

Come build with us.

[Jonas @jonaasw1]

Today we're officially launching @thecollectiv3e.

Billion-dollar companies don’t come from ideas alone. They come from access to people and resources at the right time.

We’ve built The Collective to be a space for ambitious young people to supercharge their life’s work.

Over the last year, we've met thousands of the most talented young builders - people who are carving their own paths and aren't afraid to do things the unconventional way.

In the last 6 months alone:
- $15M+ raised by members
- $2M+ in revenue driven for members
- 5+ companies launched

Up until this point we've been 100% in person - we’ve never even had a group chat.

Today we're sharing the platform we've built to directly address pain points we keep hearing - hiring, finding co-founders, fundraising, distribution, and more.

Members will get access to:
- our talent pool + directory
- regular member-only events
- a private member portal + Slack
- warm intro concierge to partners
- $500K+ in perks (@stripe, @ElevenLabs, etc.)

Currently accepting:
- Founders (any stage)
- Top talent open to startup work
- Operators, creators, and freelancers
- Select investors

Come build with us.

[Irin Son @irinson]

@JFinnyc @brexHQ @tryramp @mercury The target audience for this ad does

[Irin Son @irinson]

@founders_cafe community💗

[Jeremiah Welch @JeremiahThinks]

Builders bbq

Thanks for hosting @flotemer

[Irin Son @irinson]

@luisgnet I gotta say, I’m loving the different angle shots of the cafe. It’s much better background than your sad little desk

[Nivi @nivi]

Most people will accept whatever AI gives them, so the value of differentiated human craftsmanship will go up.

[Irin Son @irinson]

@BenHolfeld @USCIS Congrats Ben!!!

[Irin Son @irinson]

@luisgnet This is a travesty

[Irin Son @irinson]

“What kind of person can only become themselves here?”

[Jaya Gupta @JayaGup10]

https://t.co/5vDrndcmFn

[Irin Son @irinson]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend

[Claude @claudeai]

We’ve agreed to a partnership with @SpaceX that will substantially increase our compute capacity.

This, along with our other recent compute deals, means that we’ve been able to increase our usage limits for Claude Code and the Claude API.

[Irin Son @irinson]

@proccomputer Mesmerizing

[Irin Son @irinson]

https://t.co/KU4uE3CQ0U

[Irin Son @irinson]

This is fine.

[OpenAI Developers @OpenAIDevs]

Pets. Now in Codex.

Use /pet to wake your pet.

[Irin Son @irinson]

@dapanji_eth @founders_cafe it’s a free community space for founders and robots

if you are a founder or a robot you should apply! https://t.co/ES8aPhboMF

[Irin Son @irinson]

the newest member of @founders_cafe

[Irin Son @irinson]

@Safinazelhadry @founders_cafe I ordered a @NeoTheHomeRobot to clean up after all you hooligans so we will have a robot on staff soon

[Irin Son @irinson]

@luisgnet @founders_cafe no one can figure out the new coffee machine