Brandon Jenkins

Co-Founder & COO @Fundrise

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

My son always asks me: “What jobs will be left if AI takes off?”

The answer is: new jobs.

That is not a theory. Anyone working at the frontier is already watching it happen in real time.

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

Congratulations to the @fin_ai team on behalf of $VCX and our +100,000 investors!

Few companies build a world-class tech company once... let alone twice! First as a multi-billion-dollar SaaS company and then again as an AI company with the $3.6B sale to @salesforce.

Fin has been the most successful AI pivot of any company yet. The Fin leaders bet a $300M/year business and succeeded.

As @Padday said in our recent conversation "ChatGPT was the pivotal moment. The culture part was the hardest thing, and it was brutal.”

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

@RobertMSterling Guess how many VCX created.

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

NEW: Interview with Paul Adams, Chief Product Officer of Fin (formerly Intercom)

@Padday helped lead one of the most successful AI refoundings in software: @intercom bet a $300M/yr business to build @fin_ai, an AI customer service agent. We sat down on Onward to talk about what that bet looked like from the inside, and where he thinks AI takes knowledge work next.

Full disclosure: $VCX is a proud investor in Fin.

In this episode, we cover:
- The internal memo that called ChatGPT "the iPhone moment" and the $300M business Intercom bet on it
- Why going all-in on AI was the easy decision, and why the culture change nearly broke the company
- How the bet refortified the legacy business instead of killing it
- Customer service as the canary in the coal mine for AI and knowledge work
- The three layers Fin runs on, including the models Intercom trains itself
- Read vs. write: the line where an AI agent's risk and power both live
- Why we judge AI against a standard no human meets (a chaotic Vodafone call center)
- Claude Code as "magic": a non-coder turning one prompt into a finished video
- @Fundrise is a customer of Fin with: ~94% resolution and ~$600K in support cost reduced
- Why technology moves fast and people move slowly (and what retail's collapse teaches)
- Scenario planning the next few years: real pain and a wave of one-person companies
- Why Paul calls himself a "delusional optimist," not a doomer

Watch the full episode below →
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Paul Adams, CPO of Fin (formerly Intercom)
(00:51) Competing with the AI labs, and the three layers Fin runs on
(05:46) Technology moves fast, people move slowly
(09:33) The Block layoffs
(12:24) Intercom's refounding: IPO, ChatGPT, all-in on AI
(15:31) Why the culture change was the hardest part
(15:59) How the AI bet refortified the legacy business
(20:20) Customer interview: Fundrise on Fin
(22:48) The economics (~$600K saved vs. ~$80K)
(24:45) Customer service as the canary in the coal mine
(26:12) New jobs that didn't exist, like agent orchestration
(30:11) Read vs. write to the database (the Delta story)
(31:53) Hallucinations and the Vodafone call center
(37:00) Claude Code as "magic"
(40:25) Scenario planning the next few years
(44:35) Europe vs. the US and China
(49:37) Cancer, optimism, and governing AI well
(52:40) Wrap

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

Companies are staying private longer.

"Median market capitalization at IPO for the Magnificent Seven was $1.2 billion. Their median market cap is now $3.1 trillion, more than a 2,500-fold increase. For SpaceX to achieve comparable growth from a $1.8 trillion starting valuation, it would have to approach a value of $5 quadrillion."

https://t.co/MGVdhaAh8G

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

What does it take to get a 'dog longevity drug' approved by the FDA?

There are three steps and @loyalfordogs has already made a lot of progress:
1. Safe ✅
2. Effective ✅
3. Manufacturing 🕙

"Because it's a dog, people tend to think the FDA regulation is lower, and that's actually not true." @celinehalioua

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

“There’ve been so many times in drug development where the world has changed rapidly and then it doesn’t really change much in the biotech drug world.

There’s really basic shit that we need to do in terms of quantifying and understanding disease before an AI can [cure cancer in 10 years].”

@celinehalioua, CEO and founder @loyalfordogs, shares why she’s skeptical that AI will significantly impact drug development in the near term.

[Brandon Jenkins @btj111]

@BenMillerise @celinehalioua So good!

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

VIDEO: This miracle pill could make dogs live longer, with Celine Halioua, Founder & CEO of Loyal
https://t.co/Yu1ZdMmWga

Spotify: https://t.co/9FbiuNNmUO

Apple: https://t.co/l31QYSOpzo

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

NEW Exclusive Interview: This miracle pill could make dogs live longer, with Celine Halioua, Founder & CEO of Loyal

@celinehalioua is building the first drug ever FDA-approved for lifespan extension itself — starting with dogs. We sat down on Onward to talk about why she thinks longevity is the most under-built frontier in medicine and what’s next for @loyalfordogs.

We cover:
Why the U.S. healthcare system structurally can't build preventative medicine
The "micro single-payer" reason dogs are the perfect first market
"Save the dogs, save the world" — Loyal's Tesla-style master plan
The September 2019 FDA pathway change that made the entire company possible
Why big dogs die young (growth hormones that never turn off)
Caloric restriction mimetics — the second drug, for dogs of any size
Why drug development is mostly logistics and economics, not science
Scenario planning the next five years of biotech
Why Loyal is AI-resistant and AI-amplified
Being fired (and rehired) from the longevity fund — twice
Bottom 10% of her high school class → Oxford → dropping out six months from her PhD

Watch the full episode below →

𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Celine Halioua, Founder & CEO of Loyal
(01:36) What is Loyal?
(02:29) Why big dogs die younger
(05:47) How the second drug works
(08:22) First longevity drug in history
(09:37) Why longevity drugs never existed
(16:13) The master plan
(18:23) Private vs Public
(20:00) Three steps to market
(25:55) The regulatory loophole
(29:27) Scenario planning
(31:54) AI and drug development
(35:42) Good scenario
(38:03) Bad scenario
(39:35) Unexpected scenario
(44:06) Why Fundrise
(49:27) Founding story

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

The arc of financial history bends towards democracy.

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

"A pill that makes dogs live longer...sounds like magic."

Excited to share my full conversation with @loyalfordogs CEO and founder @celinehalioua, tomorrow morning.

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

@eglyman @karimatiyeh @tryramp @carlquintanilla @SaraEisen Looking good.

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

Doing well by doing good

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

The world is waking up to @loyalfordogs

[Molly O’Shea @MollySOShea]

BREAKING: Erebor Bank hits $1.1B in deposits in 6 weeks

Unbelievable. @ereborbank @PalmerLuckey

[Molly O’Shea @MollySOShea]

Ben Miller (@BenMillerise) CEO of Fundrise $VCX: “Normal people are no longer accessing a whole phase of growth.”

Public tech (QQQ): ~25% growth
VCX portfolio: ~193% growth

“10 years from now, everyone will have 5% of their portfolio in public venture capital.”

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

This AI model is so good, the government won’t let you have it.

https://t.co/0WaRds4ode

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

@tejasmanohar @HightouchData Awesome. Well deserved.

[Benjamin Miller @BenMillerise]

"Expanding access to that system—through better technology and financial education—could help more people share in economic growth. Over time, the same technological advances could also help bring greater transparency and potentially broader access to parts of the private markets... that have traditionally been out of reach for most individual investors."
-Larry Fink, CEO of @BlackRock