Chrys Bader

Co-founder & CEO @joinrosebud. Compulsively curious. Recovering perfectionist. YC S08. 🍊🎹⚽️🧑🏻‍💻🎮🌹👶👶

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

🌹 𝗪𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗱 $𝟲𝗠 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱’𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗜 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹

Five years ago, @seandadashi and I realized the attention economy was doing more harm than good—keeping kids and adults glued to screens, chasing dopamine. As technologists, we felt a personal responsibility to build something healthier and nourishing.

After experimenting with mindful social apps—and taking a wrong turn into NFTs—we returned to our core mission: 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀, 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱.

That mission came to life in @joinrosebud—an AI journal designed with therapists to help people slow down, reflect deeply, and grow. It remembers what matters and reflects it back when you’re ready to hear it.

𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁‐𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝘁

• Launched in July 2023 with a lean team and limited capital
• Embraced hypothesis-driven development and counted every penny
• Reached profitability in 18 months with 100K+ signups

𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆

• 8,000+ paying customers
• 500 million words journaled
• 30 million mindful minutes logged
• 75% of users report mental health improvements in 30 days

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘄𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗱

Led by @BessemerVP with participation from @Initialized, @sevensevensix, @FuelCapital, @avenirgrowth, @tferriss, and other strategic partners—this $6M round will help us:

• Expand our product and engineering team
• Accelerate expansion with our new Head of Growth, @growwitharjun
• Deepen partnerships with therapists and coaches
• Scale our purpose-built memory engine for personal growth

"Mental health support shouldn't be bound by time, place, or privilege. Rosebud is leading the charge in combining AI with long-term memory to become a trusted companion in your pocket." – Maha Malik, Investor at Bessemer Venture Partners

𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁

“When I couldn’t trust my perceptions in my relationship, Rosebud’s memory of my past entries validated my feelings—and helped me trust myself again.”

— Rosebud user, domestic violence survivor

𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀, 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝘄𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻.

We’re humbled by how far we’ve come and energized by what’s ahead. If you’re passionate about mental health tech, we’re hiring in LA!

𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸𝘀 to our family and team:

Monte, Ella, Michael, Rebecca, Arjun, Diego, and my wonderful fiancé Alice 💐

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

@Rainmaker1973 False! Clutter drives me up the wall, but not my partner

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

@theo FWIW Bedrock hosted inference isn’t great in our experience. Outputs gibberish. Higher failure rate and steam interrupts.

Hope it gets better!

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

@corneliusmark @JeremyLasne yeah and how it affect install to trial rate & trial maturity rate (if trial available)?

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

@paulg standard ai slop is creating false binaries

"that's not X, it's Y."
"do you think it's X or Y?"

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

@luckyPipewrench @openclaw @jjmata it's a clever move! turn your claw into a backend.

nice one :)

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

AlphaClaw 0.9.18 🐺

🔌 Turn your @openclaw into a private API your backend can use
🦞 2026.5.28 base

Make calls to your Claw via a secure URL endpoint and receive responses (streaming supported). Great if you want to turn your claw into a service.

shout out @luckyPipewrench

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

the future will consist of two types of codebases:

1. human-led
2. ai-led

one is not better than the other. there will be a place and time for both.

the other day i was looking at some of Rosebud's original codebase (written by me) and i'm not going to lie, i really valued understanding it. it felt much cleaner and more intuitive - and i could see the entire map in my head.

being able to hold this knowledge helps inform strategic decision-making and the ability to transmute product concepts into implementation reality. knowing which primitives to re-use, etc leads to faster implementations.

AlphaClaw, on the other hand, i've never looked at the code. so i'm totally beholden to ai whenever i want to implement something, which works fine in this case. it keeps me at the product-level, and less at the systems-level.

personally, i think beauty lies at the interplay between art and science. ai gives you speed, but less beauty. less ownership.

i'm reminded of the quote "if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together"

the ai version of this

"if you want to go fast, use ai, if you want to go far, use humans"

[Wise @trikcode]

A person deleted 3 months of AI generated code because he could not understand it.

He could not explain why it was written that way.

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

Well said

[Karri Saarinen @karrisaarinen]

The fallacy of this is that more creates more. More hours, more hiring, more something.

And it is true in a sense. If you put in more work, more work will happen. But I think for most startups, the leverage is really in how differently you approach the problem, how well you cultivate your team, and the strategy.

Any large company can outspend you on hours. They have thousands or tens of thousands more people, spending more hours. If hours worked were the metric, every large company and government organization would always win and do the best work. More hours, better output.

This thinking is often representative of younger founders, where the startup becomes their identity and life. They have a hard time doing anything else, and cannot understand that your work is not the person that is you. But activities outside of work can grow you as a person too and make you do better work.

I’ve never worked this way. As a designer, I always saw the need to take a step back, to take a break. At times, I might work 12 hours or 16 hours, or whatever amount was needed, but it wasn’t the norm. You just can't grind design, you need inspiration. But taking that step away from the work, would give me more perspective, inspiration and I could approach the problem differently or I could just see the solution.

Grinding is never good for any creative problem, and startups or creating new products are often mostly about creative problem solving. Grinding works ok for email jobs, or where you just executing on very clear playbook.

With Linear, we’ve never worked this way. We work reasonable hours, 5 days a week. All of us founders have families. Many of our employees have families. I personally stop every evening, spend time with the family, cook dinner for the family, eat dinner together, and focus on things outside of work. Sometimes I work in the late evenings or weekends, but to me the pride is that I don’t need to. Company should be succesful without it.

My goal is to build a company that is sustainable in the long term, and doesn’t require heroics or personal sacrifices every single day.

There are times when our team is heroic. Launches, incidents, some other work that just needs to be done. They will work late into the night because they know it is the right thing. But we don’t require that every day or every week, and the more this happens, the more I think it is a failure of our company and leadership. The team and the leaders should always keep a reserve to use when something is needed.

Our thinking was also that quality, which we value, doesn’t emerge from working more or stressing people more. It emerges when you create the conditions for it to emerge. Often it is the appreciation, space, time, and how the person feels. A person who is rested will do better work.

I wouldn’t attribute much of our success to working a lot. The success came from having clear thinking, ideas, and focus to do the right things.

I sometimes wish we could move the culture more toward a Zen master.

Real mastery is not exerting the most effort. It is achieving the outcome with the least necessary effort.

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

@Im_IrushiK Not fake

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

@drewhouston @Dropbox great run @drewhouston! thanks for all the awesome parties along the way

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

@andrewjiang One person can only run so many agents. And we know the work quality sucks at scale

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

this phenomenon is called Jevons Paradox:

increasing the efficiency of a resource tends to increase, rather than decrease, its total consumption

in this case, the resource is code. people are building more, faster, so the demand for operators is naturally increasing.

[David Sacks @DavidSacks]

Q: How are job postings for software engineers rising rapidly despite AI agents automating coding?

A: Because there’s far more code to manage than ever before. We’re already seeing a 14x YoY increase in GitHub commits, and it’s accelerating.

AI has dramatically lowered the cost of writing code, so it’s now being used across far more businesses, applications, and use cases.

We’re at the beginning of a massive productivity boom driven by the proliferation of bespoke software throughout the entire economy.

Coding has been AI’s breakout use case this year. The fact that it’s increased demand for software engineers — rather than decreased it — should call into question the entire “AI will cause mass job loss” narrative.

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

hmm @_hex_tech is cool but way too expensive. for like $700/mo teammates still can burn through credits in a day.

probably not worth it tbh. not gonna pay thousands a month just to query when i can do it for free w/ gemini in BQ

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

@andrewjiang this is awesome, well done! the vibes are immaculate

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

@krishna_gaurav @seandadashi I checked and it's working for me - can you email [email protected] with details about your account / device.

Thank you for reaching out!

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

🌹 𝗪𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗱 $𝟲𝗠 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱’𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗜 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹

Five years ago, @seandadashi and I realized the attention economy was doing more harm than good—keeping kids and adults glued to screens, chasing dopamine. As technologists, we felt a personal responsibility to build something healthier and nourishing.

After experimenting with mindful social apps—and taking a wrong turn into NFTs—we returned to our core mission: 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀, 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱.

That mission came to life in @joinrosebud—an AI journal designed with therapists to help people slow down, reflect deeply, and grow. It remembers what matters and reflects it back when you’re ready to hear it.

𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁‐𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝘁

• Launched in July 2023 with a lean team and limited capital
• Embraced hypothesis-driven development and counted every penny
• Reached profitability in 18 months with 100K+ signups

𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆

• 8,000+ paying customers
• 500 million words journaled
• 30 million mindful minutes logged
• 75% of users report mental health improvements in 30 days

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘄𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗱

Led by @BessemerVP with participation from @Initialized, @sevensevensix, @FuelCapital, @avenirgrowth, @tferriss, and other strategic partners—this $6M round will help us:

• Expand our product and engineering team
• Accelerate expansion with our new Head of Growth, @growwitharjun
• Deepen partnerships with therapists and coaches
• Scale our purpose-built memory engine for personal growth

"Mental health support shouldn't be bound by time, place, or privilege. Rosebud is leading the charge in combining AI with long-term memory to become a trusted companion in your pocket." – Maha Malik, Investor at Bessemer Venture Partners

𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁

“When I couldn’t trust my perceptions in my relationship, Rosebud’s memory of my past entries validated my feelings—and helped me trust myself again.”

— Rosebud user, domestic violence survivor

𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀, 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝘄𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻.

We’re humbled by how far we’ve come and energized by what’s ahead. If you’re passionate about mental health tech, we’re hiring in LA!

𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸𝘀 to our family and team:

Monte, Ella, Michael, Rebecca, Arjun, Diego, and my wonderful fiancé Alice 💐

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

@krishna_gaurav @seandadashi What do you mean?

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

@gladkos @ycombinator At the airport now - back end of June!

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

headed to SF to judge @ycombinator GBrain hackathon! see you there

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

@gladkos @ycombinator doh just saw this!

[Chrys Bader @chrysb]

@paulg Would like to see the trend back 100 years. Not enough historic data here so chart seems to selectively show a narrow window that supports a story