Tony Staehelin

Founder at Benable - The Word of Mouth Platform Formerly: Teespring

[Tony Staehelin @astaehelin]

New team stickers arrived! Sure the thing to say on here is that launching new features is always exciting. But the truth? When you’re moving crazy fast and just a dozen people shipping features to hundreds of thousands of users, every launch is a mix of excitement and dread. 🤣

[Tony Staehelin @astaehelin]

10 years ago: "We need an EA who's discreet - they'll see every salary and comp package."

Now: "We need an AI engineer who's discreet - they've seen every Slack message, every doc, every email, and every unhinged prompt the CEO has ever run." 😅

[Connor DiemandYauman @connord_y]

Garry, you're great, but this is a bad take.

We've raised $200M+ from philanthropy and have worked with most major funders. MacKenzie Scott's process was one of the most thorough. They asked for a lot and went deep — but only on what actually mattered. No BS. We received $15M (it was exactly the right amount for our org).

You said there are "a bunch of examples in the long form post" of harmful gifts. I count two. Out of $26B given. And you're framing this as "harmful to the republic"? A billionaire wanting to give away her fortune to nonprofits too quickly — that's the threat to the republic you chose to tweet about? Out of everything happening in this country right now, the fact that this cracks your top 50 most tweet-worthy concerns is wild to me.

A huge amount of philanthropy is stuck. It's a huge problem in our sector. Large endowments with big staffs and years of "figuring things out." Most pay out the legal minimum — in some cases less than the annual interest earned on principal that already generated a tax deduction. There's extensive reporting on how many Giving Pledge signatories have moved capital far more slowly than the public narrative suggests.

And re: your "Stewardship Pledge" — one hour of auditing per $1M given — sounds reasonable until you do the math. Elon Musk donating half his ~$300B fortune would require 150,000 hours of oversight — 72 years of full-time work! You've just made the most elegant argument ever for why many billionaires don't give.

M. Scott is actually moving capital. At scale. When you deploy $26B quickly, some grants won't work — that's to be expected. How many VCs have ended up funding companies they shouldn't have? Why is "move fast and break things" exclusive to silicon valley tech companies?

To be clear: there are real, fact-based critiques to make about what's happening in philanthropy right now. This hit piece on Scott isn't one of them. This kind of framing can meaningfully hurt organizations doing real work, and I know that's not your intention.

If you want to talk about what's actually broken and how to improve it, my DMs are open.

[Tony Staehelin @astaehelin]

@connord_y @garrytan This, 100%

[Tony Staehelin @astaehelin]

@FOURorganics @ryancarson We just built this!! Benable ($17M raised, 1 million users) just launched our Credibility Pages for businesses! All your social proof from across the web on one page (helping you convert leads into customers, and rank higher in SEO and AI results!). Shoot me a DM

[Nikhil Basu Trivedi @nbt]

This year’s contributions to my year-end blog post are from founders like @qasar, @Max & Jensen, leaders at companies like @canva & @OpenAI, and VCs at firms like @a16z, @emergencecap, and @usv.

AI once again dominates the themes, with predictions that reasoning models will yield meaningful advances for applications, AI will show up in bottom line ROI for businesses, and that memory and proactivity will lead to better AI experiences. There is optimism for consumer technology having a renaissance, for AI moving further into the physical world, and for AI yielding scientific discoveries. And in our world of startups and venture capital investing, there is the expectation of a robust capital markets environment, with much-awaited IPOs and significant M&A in 2026.

Link below. Happy New Year!

[The Information @theinformation]

Benable Founder @astaehelin on his new social media platform:

“We're Benable, the word-of-mouth platform… an app where people find and share trusted recommendations, all types of recommendations."

Watch the full episode: https://t.co/bAdl9nQxbH

[Tony Staehelin @astaehelin]

@walkeriwilliams @escliu @BridgetCBSauer The most “Community Manager” photo I’ve ever seen

[Tony Staehelin @astaehelin]

@walkeriwilliams @escliu @hf0 @jaltma @LatticeHQ @_altcapital @SpamRoss @numeral @artlevy @Benable_HQ @moeamaya Great times!

[Tony Staehelin @astaehelin]

@jaltma Let’s go!!! Incredible investor and even better person 🙏

[Tony Staehelin @astaehelin]

@ugc_sarahd Honestly, we’re still pretty new to creators on X. But go check on TikTok or Instagram - tens of thousands of creators use the Benable app and can give you a good idea of what it’s like! And don’t hesitate to DM any questions!

[Tony Staehelin @astaehelin]

I’m getting a sinus X-ray tomorrow and they told me to bring a CD.

I’m thinking..NOW That’s What I Call Music 2

But open to suggestions?

[Tony Staehelin @astaehelin]

@nikitabier This one is great, remodeled recently, would love all those rewards if it works out https://t.co/bWJqSGxUS7

[Tony Staehelin @astaehelin]

@olivia_whissell thanks!! let me know any feedback or anything we can do to improve! Like what’s the most annoying thing so far if you had to say 🫶

[Tony Staehelin @astaehelin]

@nikitabier Love this. One of the things that works best about @Benable_HQ is it’s only for recommending things you love - there’s no way to list or review things you hate. And you’re right I think it ends up being more fun and special that way - everyone focusing on sharing their favorites

[Tony Staehelin @astaehelin]

@LaetitiaParente @Benable_HQ Thanks again for joining the Benable event!! Was a great night!

[Laetitia Parente | UGC Creator @LaetitiaParente]

Just attended the @Benable_HQ Creator Event at in San Francisco — such a fun and inspiring night! Loved meeting fellow creators and 🤍

#SanFrancisco #creator #sfcreator #Benable

[Tony Staehelin @astaehelin]

First time buying a car since GPT came out — completely different experience. Felt like I had an expert car salesman negotiator on my team, helping me say the exact right thing to unlock every last discount and favorable term. During negotiations, I’d ask for a few mins to “call my wife” (a.k.a. upload offers and legal docs to GPT) and come back ready to push back on every hidden fee, fine print, and upsell. The days of walking into live negotiations at a huge experience disadvantage are over.

[Tony Staehelin @astaehelin]

Used your prompt, and o3 gave me almost an identical answer to the one it gave you. What if GPT’s answer is less revealing about us and more revealing about itself? Like it fundamentally hasn’t learned how efficient most humans want AI to be in responding, and it continually thinks it happens to be dealing with an exceptionally efficient-minded human