Whatever your view on billionaire wealth, I’m glad that one of the world’s richest people got there by building technology rather than running an oil empire, trading stocks, or running a dictatorship.
Scoop: Benchmark has raised $2 billion across two new funds, including its first growth fund, a big shift for a firm that spent decades defending a smaller, focused approach to venture investing. Details here:
https://t.co/bhikTRE3HI
SF was over if not for OpenAI and Anthropic!
Before that, it was over if not for Stripe, Uber, Airbnb, Twitter, Salesforce, Visa, Gap... and if you go back a bir further - Levi's, Bank of California, Spreckels Sugar, Wells Fargo, Union Iron Works, Southern Pacific :)
The city gets “saved” by the next boom every time. After the gold rush, there was silver, railroads, shipping, banks, sugar, utilities, Pacific trade, defense, semis, PCs, biotech, enterprise software, the internet, social, mobile, SaaS, fintech, crypto, and AI.
I think that's just how it goes in this town.
@TheStalwart I thought my Chinese AI hardware take was spicy and then you hit me with the “do we really need authentic memories of our loved ones when the matrix can freely provide them?”
This take is true. Full stop. The only thing that is missing is that today many more people can start a company to do this, it’s easier than ever. So you will have more competition. You will verticalize more. People will build smaller (lifestyle) business, which will not VC cases
Something must be done. This is a national tragedy. This is worse than the national team no longer qualifying for the World Cup. This is even worse than the death of Italian Cinema. Ferrari *is* Italy.
Jony Ive can make slabs. He can't make cars. Give the job back to Pininfarina.