Congxing Cai

Forward deployed investor. What I learned shipping at Google, Snap, and my own company — about the gap between tech and business.

[Congxing Cai @congxing]

1/ I screened 237 resumes from Stanford and Berkeley for one intern role.

Almost every one looks extraordinary. That's the problem.

When everyone looks this strong on paper, the resume stops being a signal. The only thing left: did they build something that mattered, or something that looked impressive?

Three patterns from those 237 resumes show where this generation of best newgrads is heading, and how to tell the real top talent apart. 👇

[ROGΞR @luoj]

No surprise Yahoo and Snap top the startup mafia list. The recipe: talented employees and poor management. Hire great people, then give them enough reasons to leave and build something better.
#SnapMafia #YahooMafia

[Congxing Cai @congxing]

@Geodesiclab Super exciting! Congrats!

[Geodesic Intelligence @Geodesiclab]

1/ Today, we’re introducing Geodesic Intelligence, and launching NovaDDE and NovaAtom-Lite-Preview.

Geodesic is building an AI-native platform for protein therapeutics, building AGI for drug discovery to find the shortest path from biology to medicines.
https://t.co/SNuR5NPVxs

[Congxing Cai @congxing]

https://t.co/iHaWhzxtus

[Congxing Cai @congxing]

I love this release. It feels the model understands my content and play it back to me. 🚀

[Sonilo @Sonilo_music]

Meet the first Sound World Model from Sonilo.

Generated video can look incredible, but without the right sound, it still feels distant.

Sonilo takes a video and creates the music and sound effects it needs, timed to the scene, motion, mood, and environment.

And in head-to-head benchmarks, Sonilo outperforms leading models across both music and sound effects.

With Sound Effects 1.0, we’re bringing music and sound effects together into one sound layer for videos.

Music carries emotion.
Sound effects create presence.

Together, they make worlds feel real, immersive, and alive!

Sound Effects 1.0 is live.

#SoundWorldModel #Sonilo #AIAudio

[Congxing Cai @congxing]

100% agree - lots of people laugh at startup founders for not making easy money on buying a big house with stable jobs

[dnap @dnapway]

David Friedberg says the greatest lie of the 20th century was putting all your net worth in your home

"When you do that, then the only way to keep Americans wealthy and to keep the middle class stable is to keep the price of homes going up, because that’s the only asset."

“So if you want your net worth to go up every year, they need to have policies that drive the price of homes up every year. That ultimately leads to a point where we're at today where young people can’t afford those super expensive homes."

“Back in the day, 30, 40 years ago, you got a good job, you could buy a home. Today, because we made everyone put all of their net worth in their home and we had to keep home prices going up, people got screwed."

“So these are the fundamental issues, the mistakes that were made over the last couple of decades that lead to this great socialist wave that’s underway right now.”

[Congxing Cai @congxing]

@fal @Sonilo_music Finally, there is a good music api!!!

[fal @fal]

Sound Effects 1.0 from @Sonilo_music is now available on fal.

Generate realistic sound effects from video or text.

Upload a video to get a fully synced audio track, or describe the exact sound you need with a text prompt. Generated in seconds.

[Congxing Cai @congxing]

5/ We back technical founders at Embedding VC, so this is the pool we recruit from.

The bar isn't just high, it's compressed. Everyone looks strong on paper.

The only question that still separates them: did you build something that mattered, or something that looked impressive? If your answer is the first, my DMs are open.

[Congxing Cai @congxing]

1/ I screened 237 resumes from Stanford and Berkeley for one intern role.

Almost every one looks extraordinary. That's the problem.

When everyone looks this strong on paper, the resume stops being a signal. The only thing left: did they build something that mattered, or something that looked impressive?

Three patterns from those 237 resumes show where this generation of best newgrads is heading, and how to tell the real top talent apart. 👇

[Congxing Cai @congxing]

4/ Cross-functional by default.

Five years ago a strong CS junior had three internships at progressively bigger companies.

Now it's a startup they co-founded, a hackathon they organized, a research project, and a growth internship. They pick whatever the problem needs, not a lane.

[Congxing Cai @congxing]

RT @luoj: Most friends and colleagues who've known me for less than 20 years don't know this: I studied Electrical Engineering in undergrad…

[Congxing Cai @congxing]

https://t.co/g5iKJLZcYH

[Congxing Cai @congxing]

@elonmusk Would that include grok’s codebase?

[Congxing Cai @congxing]

Wow. 10x of industrial revolution at 10x speed

[Demis Hassabis @demishassabis]

https://t.co/PTeDiv1b6L

[Congxing Cai @congxing]

Good morning.

Forget what happened yesterday. Keep moving.

[Congxing Cai @congxing]

We tend to systematically ignore the role of violence, the absolutely central role of war and slavery in creating and shaping the basic institutions of what we now call “the economy”.

- David Graeber
Debt: The first five thousand years

[Congxing Cai @congxing]

AI job displacement is real. The owners cutting headcount aren't bluffing — they genuinely can do more with fewer people now.

But "just learn AI tools" as career advice has the same problem as "just invest wisely" as financial advice. Technically true. Practically useless for the people who need it most.

The interesting question isn't whether new jobs appear. They will. It's the transition function — how much pain happens between the old equilibrium and the new one, and who bears it. Historically, the answer is: the people with the least power bear the most cost, and the transition takes longer than the optimists predict.