The unexpected side of venture is that it grows your ambitions in a way that you don't expect. When I first started @archildata, I was hoping that organizations could use it to build a lower-cost way to run applications like Wordpress or genomic sequencing. This is pretty far from where we've landed!
There are two cataclysmic changes coming to how we think about infrastructure over the next few years. First, the next wave of applications are *stateful* in way that tools like Kubernetes don't solve for. Secondly, the models that are going to underpin these applications overwhelmingly prefer to use the file system as the transactional system of record.
This means that the world is in desperate need for a file system that provides a first-class developer (and agent!) experience to solve for these applications. If you look at what's available, though, XFS was released in 1994 and ZFS was released in 2005. These aren't going to be the right tools!
People who don't work in file systems continue to operate under the assumption that these systems from the turn of the millennium are the best that we will ever get, and that's just not the case.
I'm just *so* excited for what's to come with Archil, and we've only just started to lift the veil with releases like Serverless execution this week.
Thank you to @Standard_Cap and our existing investors for their support and conviction to make this vision a reality.
You can get an Archil disk today by running `npx disk create` and it's the worst version of the product that will ever exist.
Onward!
it turns out that when we added the ability to execute code directly on an Archil disk, we inadvertently built the fastest service to spin up sandboxes for agents that use a real VM.
last week, it was exciting to see @rauchg and @cramforce celebrate being in this position. i was surprised when our exec endpoint not only outperformed the Vercel sandboxes, but was faster by over 2x.
the ability to spin up compute quickly is obviously becoming fundamental as agents need the ability to run code in the cloud. however, Archil is not a sandbox company, and there's a real difference in our offering.
unlike other providers, Archil runs user code *on an individual disk*. this means that every one of these VMs that spun up had concurrent access to an infinite file system (synced to S3), and start with the same low latency regardless of the amount of data in that file system.
we think this is going to be a huge unlock as agents move from single-player to multi-player and work on larger and larger amounts of context.
finally, a note to our customers.
we want to be clear that this isn't a celebration for us. i consider myself massively *disappointed* in the numbers that we put up today. celebrating 150ms to spin up a VM further fuels the discourse that there is some kind of "compute ladder" and that the vast majority of software will be rewritten to typescript(?) or compiled to WASM(?).
we think that this is fundamentally the wrong direction for the industry. instead, we think that it's better to do hard thing without compromises.
we will not stop until you can use `exec()` on an Archil disk to get a full Linux environment in single-digit milliseconds. this is what the next generation of agentic applications need, and this is what we intend to deliver.
Delete the process
Raise a Series-A on your terms
The deadline to apply is January 7th, 2026 at 9p.m. PST.
Standard will get back to on-time applicants by January 16th, 2026
@Standard_Cap
We’re expanding the team with positions across multiple roles:
→ Developer Relations Engineer (Europe)
→ Product Engineer (Europe)
→ Senior Backend Engineer (Europe)
→ Support Engineer (Remote)
If you love open source and and are excited about solving challenging technical problems, read on:
Alex and Teddy are making something people want.
We are proud to lead their Series A and welcome Magic Patterns to the Standard Capital founder community.
Know someone thinking about Series A?
Applications are now open for Standard Capital’s inaugural Fall 2025 funding cycle.
The deadline to apply is September 17th, 2025.
After 12+ years, 25 batches, and the privilege of advising >1,000+ startups, I’m transitioning to Partner Emeritus at Y Combinator.
YC changed my life. I’m grateful to the thousands of founders who trusted me with their journeys, my fellow YC partners and teammates, and to Paul, Jessica, Trevor, and Robert for creating this extraordinary institution.
Standard Capital is name of the AI-native Series A firm I’m co-founding with two of my favorite people: Paul Buchheit, my longtime colleague at YC, and Bryan Berg, the CTO of my previous startups.
AI is reshaping every aspect of our world. We aim to embed AI in every part of our business and back the AI disruptors of tomorrow.
Follow us at @Standard_Cap, you’ll be hearing more from us soon!
. @voidfiles and I have each separately had the immense privilege of crossing paths with @berg in our careers. Like most who know him, we think highly and were *quite* excited to have him on the show. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did!
https://t.co/cVmDPArW4J
Look, uh, I know it didn't work out, but calling it "counterfeit goods" is a little harsh.
(I had to delete the offending tweet to get back on; seems like a false positive.)