Loïc Vancauwenberghe

Antwerp

[Loïc Vancauwenberghe @LoicVc]

@JDB_trading Zie je US Treasuries nog steeds als safe heaven, eerder cash of een combinatie van beide. Met cash ga je 12-18m in termijnrekeningen?

[Naval @naval]

How to Get Rich (without getting lucky):

[Loïc Vancauwenberghe @LoicVc]

@MaartenVerheyen Hoe kijk je op lange termijn naar $TLT?

[jack @jack]

we're making @blocks smaller today. here's my note to the company.

####

today we're making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: we're reducing our organization by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. that means over 4,000 of you are being asked to leave or entering into consultation. i'll be straight about what's happening, why, and what it means for everyone.

first off, if you're one of the people affected, you'll receive your salary for 20 weeks + 1 week per year of tenure, equity vested through the end of may, 6 months of health care, your corporate devices, and $5,000 to put toward whatever you need to help you in this transition (if you’re outside the U.S. you’ll receive similar support but exact details are going to vary based on local requirements). i want you to know that before anything else. everyone will be notified today, whether you're being asked to leave, entering consultation, or asked to stay.

we're not making this decision because we're in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. but something has changed. we're already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. and that's accelerating rapidly.

i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now. i chose the latter. repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead. i'd rather take a hard, clear action now and build from a position we believe in than manage a slow reduction of people toward the same outcome. a smaller company also gives us the space to grow our business the right way, on our own terms, instead of constantly reacting to market pressures.

a decision at this scale carries risk. but so does standing still. we've done a full review to determine the roles and people we require to reliably grow the business from here, and we've pressure-tested those decisions from multiple angles. i accept that we may have gotten some of them wrong, and we've built in flexibility to account for that, and do the right thing for our customers.

we're not going to just disappear people from slack and email and pretend they were never here. communication channels will stay open through thursday evening (pacific) so everyone can say goodbye properly, and share whatever you wish. i'll also be hosting a live video session to thank everyone at 3:35pm pacific. i know doing it this way might feel awkward. i'd rather it feel awkward and human than efficient and cold.

to those of you leaving…i’m grateful for you, and i’m sorry to put you through this. you built what this company is today. that's a fact that i'll honor forever. this decision is not a reflection of what you contributed. you will be a great contributor to any organization going forward.

to those staying…i made this decision, and i'll own it. what i'm asking of you is to build with me. we're going to build this company with intelligence at the core of everything we do. how we work, how we create, how we serve our customers. our customers will feel this shift too, and we're going to help them navigate it: towards a future where they can build their own features directly, composed of our capabilities and served through our interfaces. that's what i'm focused on now. expect a note from me tomorrow.

jack

[malinvestment.jpeg @malinvested]

Of course that's your contention. You're a first-time SaaS bear. You just got finished listening to some podcast, Dario on Dwarkesh, probably. Now you think it’s the end of white collar work and seat-based pricing is screwed. You're gonna be convinced of that til tomorrow when you get to “Something Big is Happening”. Then you’ll install ClawdBot on a Mac Mini, vibe code a dashboard on top of a postgres database and say we’re all just a couple ralph loops away from building a Salesforce competitor. That’s gonna last until next week when you discover context graphs, and then you're gonna be talking about how the systems of record will be disintermediated by an agentic layer and reposting OAI marketing graphics.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I won't, because ultimately the application layer is just ….”

The application layer is just business logic on top a CRUD database. You got that from Satya’s appearance on the BG2 pod, December 2024, right? Yeah, I saw that too. Were you gonna plagiarize the whole thing for us? Do you have any thoughts of your own on this matter? Or...is that your thing? You get into the replies of anyone posting a SaaS ticker. You watch some podcast and then pawn it off as your own idea just to impress some VCs and embarrass some anon who’s long SaaS? See the sad thing about a guy like you is in a couple years you're gonna start doing some thinking on your own and you're gonna come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life. One: don't do that. And two: you dropped thirty grand on Mac Minis and LLM API calls to come to the same conclusion you could’ve got for free by following a handful of VC accounts.

[Alex Hormozi @AlexHormozi]

Stop whining. Every position has an advantage.

Younger = cutting edge
Older = more experience
Smaller company = more personalized
Bigger company = longer track record
Rich = resources to use
Broke = nothing to lose

You arent limited by your resources, only your resourcefulness

[Loïc Vancauwenberghe @LoicVc]

@JDB_trading Ingestapt met $SLV puts, bedankt!

[PrivateEquityGuy (Mikk Markus) @PrivatEquityGuy]

If you are ever considering starting an investment firm, I highly suggest you read Graham Duncan's letter to a friend.

(Sage advice from someone who started his fund at 31 and today manages a $2b fund himself.)

Here are few ideas from his masterpiece:

1. Life is too short to be paralyzed by the threat of a mixed reference – some of the most revered investors in the world today were at best damned with faint praise when they left their old firms.

2. Your job is to accelerate the process of building trust with people who don’t know you.

3. Having wealthy friends and colleagues? Speak to them, and get them to wire cash into your investment partnership.

4. Wearing a suit to a meeting is one signal we send to people that we’re telling the same story about business and money.

5. Good hiring is critical: the people around you will either protect or infringe on the climate within your skull.

6. It’s very hard to own somatically (as opposed to cognitively) in advance of what it feels like to lose money for other people.

7. GPs are often mismanaging their own anxieties. So your job is to protect your psychology in advance, so prepare yourself for innocent clumsiness by your LPs.

8. It’s the manager’s decision to make the right calls for the portfolio … not the investors

9. Before starting something new – spend time alone for several weeks with a blank sheet of paper

10. Give yourself enough time to build a positive vision of a future fund instead of simply reacting against someone else’s vision or your own prior frustrations.

11. Money is like gasoline while driving across the country on a road trip. You never want to run out, but the point of life is not to go on a tour of gas stations.

[PrivateEquityGuy (Mikk Markus) @PrivatEquityGuy]

Here's a link to the original letter:
https://t.co/2s6N8scre9

[Jordi Visser @jvisserlabs]

https://t.co/gCWSQ3bk8M

[Loïc Vancauwenberghe @LoicVc]

@JDB_trading Neen, handig!

[Loïc Vancauwenberghe @LoicVc]

@JDB_trading Dag Jan, ondertussen 1% boven 61.8% retracement en maandcandle sluit in 5min. Duidelijk signaal om eventuele shorts te sluiten of moet je stoploss wat hoger liggen (5% bijvoorbeeld)?

[Loïc Vancauwenberghe @LoicVc]

@america_events @cryptobeastreal

[Navalism @NavalismHQ]

"A taste of freedom can make you unemployable."

@naval

[Loïc Vancauwenberghe @LoicVc]

@JDB_trading Bedankt voor al uw inzichten

[Loïc Vancauwenberghe @LoicVc]

@JDB_trading @Milan_vc

[Alex Hormozi @AlexHormozi]

Really exceptional. @JeffBezos

[Loïc Vancauwenberghe @LoicVc]

@gertdemesure Danku Gert, hopelijk snel respons

[Loïc Vancauwenberghe @LoicVc]

@gertdemesure Al nieuws op wanneer we iets mogen verwachten?

[Loïc Vancauwenberghe @LoicVc]

@JDB_trading @Milan_vc