Exciting news: @ListenLabs is joining @salesforce .
When @itsalfredw and I first met, we dreamed of a world where AI was as capable as it is today. But we knew intelligence alone wouldn't be enough. It had to deeply understand the humans it's built for.
That idea became Listen.
Since we started in 2023, Listen has interviewed millions of people for companies like Microsoft, Anthropic, and Sweetgreen. I am so proud of the product and the team we built.
Now that world is here. AI can build almost anything. Knowing what people actually want is the hard part. With Salesforce, when the transaction closes, we can bring that to every company in the world, much faster than we could alone.
We're just getting started. Back to work!
a 10 minute application for a $50,000 fellowship. no strings.
a total of $1,000,000 going out, towards making more magic in the world.
presenting the Basis Fellowship.
run by @markkhrapko ,@thewildstevenp , and spencer green
Should you chase hype or ignore it? The tech industry has been debating this for decades. So at @Sequoia, we dug into 20 years of hype data.
This summer, I worked with Sequoia intern @ochonaut to measure hype over the past 2 decades. The chart below ranks the most hyped topics on Hacker News for every year since 2007. Under each year sits the most valuable company founded that year.
Here are a few observations:
1/ The top company founded in a given year is rarely related to the hype of that period. Airbnb was founded in 2008, when the top topic was Google. Uber arrived in 2009, while the conversation revolved around low-level programming. Anthropic came in 2021, while the internet was consumed by crypto. Chasing hype rarely leads to enduring outcomes. The top companies of recent years have yet to be decided.
2/ New trends announce themselves five to six years early. LLMs first cracked the top 15 in 2016 and took until 2022 to hit #1. AI coding entered at #12 in 2021 and tops the list in 2026. Crypto entered in 2011 before 2017 and 2021 peaks. “New” trends don’t appear out of nowhere, and internet subcommunities are often the first to know where the puck is headed.
3/ Long-term “hype” is a durable signal. The “Musk-Verse” has been a top 15 topic for every one of the past 14 years. Sustained attention on the internet is rare and tends to mark something real.
Next up, we want to run the same analysis with sources like X and LinkedIn. If that's of interest, give us some encouragement and we'll share the results.
Our intern just built the first zero-person company.
Listen's agent ran a loop:
- Interview users
- Build
- Test with real people
- Fix issues
- Repeat
2,000 interviews and 100 concepts later: an app with 100s of paying customers.
Here’s how it works: