Julkarnain Shahid

Failed 2 startups. Still building.
SDE2 @Amazon | Building @distillrAI & @930AlphaAi
Sharing what I learn about startups, AI, and building stuff.

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

I failed 2 startups in 2 years.
Got rejected by YC.
Lost months of work.

But I'm not done!

Here's my 5-year roadmap to financial freedom:

Not sure if I'll make it, but I'm documenting the whole journey here.

If you're building something, let's connect!

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

This is uncomfortable for OpenAI.

For years: OpenAI = the default. GPT = the AI brand.

The new reality:
→ Anthropic leads on ARR ($30B vs $25B)
→ 1,000+ enterprise customers at $1M+ (doubled since February)
→ Safety brand that enterprise compliance teams trust

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

Google's dot-com ramp ($400M → $6B, 2002–2005) was the fastest organic revenue ramp in American corporate history.

Anthropic just covered nearly 4x that distance in a single quarter.

$9B ARR in December. $30B ARR today.

Here's why this compounds so fast 🧵

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

Here's what most people miss:

Anthropic isn't selling seats. They're selling inference.

→ Company signs a $1M+ API deal
→ They build products on top of Claude
→ Their products grow → their Claude usage grows
→ Anthropic earns more without running a single upsell motion

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

The pricing is a masterclass in land-and-expand:

- Free tier → ships you something real immediately
- $20–$100/month → captures individual builders
- Usage credits → scales with how much you build
- Enterprise → custom contracts for corporate teams

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

A 146-person startup just added $100M in revenue in a single month.

Not $100M this year. Last month!

Lovable is at $400M ARR with fewer employees than most Series A startups have.

That's $2.7M revenue per employee. Stripe does ~$600K.

Here's how they actually work 🧵

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

Here's what most people get wrong about Lovable:

They're not an AI company.

They run Claude under the hood. No foundation model. No ML team.

→ Context management across multi-file codebases
→ GitHub + Supabase + Vercel integrations baked in

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

Damn!!! Not sure if we are moving to a dystopian world or an eutopian one.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Neuralink enables those who have lost the ability to speak to speak again

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

Amazon pays me to sit here and work.

And here I am thinking about what to build next😬

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

@ThePeterMick $100 one

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

@ThePeterMick Even though it's the most obvious answer, I can't stress enough how good it is currently. I was primarily using Cursor and ChatGPT. I even tried OpenClaw. But since the past 2 weeks, all I am using is Claude Code and it's like I don't even need anything else.

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

How cooked are we?

[Alex Albert @alexalbert__]

We released Claude Opus 4.6 just two months ago. Today we're sharing some info on our new model, Claude Mythos Preview.

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

Apparently @AnthropicAI leaked their entire codebase yesterday.
It basically "revealed" background agents, autonomous mode, persistent memory etc.
Everyone is talking about it.
Every newsletter is covering it.
This is a textbook definition of "Manufactured Scarcity" that makes something feel forbidden, and the internet distributes it for free.
Anthropic got 28 million views, 84,000 GitHub stars, and their entire feature roadmap in every developer's head.
Zero ad spend.
Was it a "Mistake" or "Masterstroke"?

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

True story!

[Min Choi @minchoi]

This deserves @Bangers 😂

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

I'm building business due to this movie!

[Starter Story @starter_story]

How many people are building businesses today thanks to this movie?

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

Okay I wasn't supposed to share anything but the itch can't be ignored!
Been building something in the wedding space.
Dropping one image!
One clue, Zero context.
First person to guess gets LIFETIME FREE ACCESS
(And the rest gets early access)🫡

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

@XtroUI

[Julkarnain Shahid @ProbablyShahid]

Building shouldn't stop!😁