Will

Bankstack whisperer @Mercury

[immad @immad]

1/ Today we are launching @Mercury Command - the future of agentic banking.*

Command lets you kick off AI agents to do work, while staying in full control, all with human support integrated.

[Will @willy_mitch]

I barely look at it. When I turn 65 in a few years, and I tell my robot doctor to fix me and make no mistakes, I'll hand over the decades of Whoop data. Even if that data is bad, I'm sure Doctor Roboto can glean something from variations within it or something

[Will Manidis @WillManidis]

it brings me no joy to report I spend a year wondering why I was constantly sleepy and had a low sleep score on my whoop that was totally cured by simply stop wearing the whoop.

[Will @willy_mitch]

@yasir_fission hype machine music for a machine worth the hype!

[Mercury @mercury]

Somewhere between your third fireside chat and fifth happy hour, there's a record on. For NYTW, Mercury is hosting a vinyl listening lounge at 88 King Street. June 1–3.

RSVP https://t.co/3882J858AQ

[Will @willy_mitch]

@MattLoszak Huge! Bravo!

[Protege @withprotegeai]

Today, we are thrilled to announce that @withprotegeai has raised a new $30M funding round led by @a16z.

When @BobbySamuels and former @DatavantHQ co-founder and CEO Travis May first started Protege in 2024, we saw three bottlenecks to AI’s progress — compute, models, and data. Compute has scaled dramatically, models continue to improve, but access to the right data remains the hardest part.

That’s why Protege exists: to be the infrastructure for real-world data in AI development. In the few months since our last round of funding, we’ve felt the urgent demand pull across industries, domains, and modalities. We are rapidly expanding to meet those needs.

When AI builders come to Protege, they’re looking for real-world data: the most authentic signal of how people and systems actually behave. This is not synthetic data created by AI nor manufactured data created to simulate human behavior.

Across every stage of the AI development lifecycle — from pre-training to post-training to fine-tuning to evaluation — AI builders need this data. They’re looking across modalities and industries: healthcare, video, audio, motion capture, gaming, manufacturing, life sciences, real estate, finance, education, and many more. Foundational, multi-modal model-builders (including the majority of the Magnificent Seven) now work with us across multiple domains along with dozens of other model builders.

Thanks to @daisydwolf and the rest of the a16z team for joining us on this journey as well as our existing investors also participating in this round — @nbt at @footworkvc, @saarsaar at @CRV, @BloombergBeta, @flexcapital, Shaper Capital, and others.

Lastly, a huge thank you to the @withprotegeai team for making this all possible.

More details in 🧵!

#AIDevelopment #DataInfrastructure #a16z #StartupFunding #Protege

[Will @willy_mitch]

@lachygroom I bring an air quality monitor with me (Aranet 4) when I'm moving around just out of curiosity and the highest CO2 readings I've gotten are in Teslas. I think they're sealed and ventilated in a way that's particular to the type of vehicle, but makes you sick

[Feross @feross]

1/ 🚨 We just found a massive abuse of the npm ecosystem:

• Targeting 135+ orgs worldwide 🤯
• 175 malicious npm packages (26k+ downloads)
• 630+ HTML lures
• Weaponized unpkg as free CDN hosting for credential-phishing attacks

👀 More details ⬇️⬇️⬇️

[Will @willy_mitch]

This is an iphone disrespecter account (I use an iphone)

[Will @willy_mitch]

Is it just me or has iphone auto correct quality dropped through the floor lately

[Will @willy_mitch]

Instagram should allow you to send comments. You're welcome @finkd I'm sorry @jesus

[Oso @osoHQ]

Building with LLMs? Authorization gets complicated fast.

LLMs can ignore instructions, misinterpret intent, or get tricked by prompts.

There’s no input to sanitize—just unpredictable behavior.

We break down why least privilege matters and how to enforce it, see post!

[Will @willy_mitch]

@ChaseLittle I just hope there's a Tomcat still out there, flying happily ever after

[Will @willy_mitch]

No Touch ID and laggy iOS software is intolerable

[Will @willy_mitch]

Who's making the iPhone killer?

[Will @willy_mitch]

It's been quite the ride

[immad @immad]

1/ Mercury 2025 Annual Letter:

Our vision is that banking* should do more than hold your money. It should include the cards and software you need to actually use your money.

In 2024, we took huge strides to bring that vision to life:
* Grew transaction volume to $156bn.
* Launched 4 new major products – bill pay, invoicing, accounting automations and expense mgmt
* Expanded into the consumer space with Mercury Personal*
* Invested in our core banking infrastructure and experience

Here’s how we got here and what we learned along the way 🧵

[Will @willy_mitch]

@charlieblank_ If they don't want my thumbprints then no one can have them

[Will @willy_mitch]

I just want an iPhone with a thumb button...

[Will @willy_mitch]

Congratulations @browserbase! Wheels up 🛫!

[Paul Klein IV @pk_iv]

The next billion dollar company will be powered by Browserbase.

We already help hundreds of AI startups automate the web at scale.

Now, we've raised a $21 million Series A round, co-led by Kleiner Perkins and CRV, with participation from Okta Ventures.

What will you 🅱️uild?

[Mercury @mercury]

Two events you shouldn't miss at New York @Techweek_ next week:

1) Our comedy night with @yayalexisgay and @TurnerNovak

2) Our chat with our VP Finance Dan Kang, @arampell (@a16z), and Shensi Ding (@merge_api) on CEO x Finance team relationships

RSVP at the links below - and see you there! 👇