Damn Gravity Book Company

Make no small plans. Damn Gravity publishes books for entrepreneurs and innovators. Pick up our latest titles 👇

[Damn Gravity Book Company @damngrav]

2025 is the year of No Small Plans

Start strong w/ our new books👇

⚫The Experimentation Machine: Finding Product-Market Fit in the Age of AI / @bussgang

🚀 Building Rocketships: Product Management for High-Growth Companies / @ojiudezue @ezinneudezue

https://t.co/jfjtAH0mPO

[Ben Putano 📚 @BenjaminPutano]

Today's Daily Grind: Developers are split on the merits of Claude Code

https://t.co/9o8YUi5bF2

[Ben Putano 📚 @BenjaminPutano]

Yesterday was an era-defining news day. We are living in a world being shaped by two technologies: AI and nuclear.

Here's a recap:

First, four new major AI models were released:

- @OpenAI gpt-oss-20b and -120b -- OpenAI's first open-weight models in years, efficient enough to run on your phone

- @GoogleDeepMind Genie 3 -- The most expansive Worlds Model yet, allows you to build video game-like environments that users can move around it. This isn't just big for video games and VR, but robot and AI agent training

- @AnthropicAI Claude 4.1 -- an incremental improvement over Claude 4, specifically enhanced for coding

- @Alibaba_Qwen Qwen-Image -- a new image model that is especially great at recreating text in its images. No more cryptic symbols and misspellings.

All of these models -- and their billions of users -- take energy. Which leads us to the second half of our era-defining news day:

@generalmatter, an energy startup founded in 2024 by Founders Fund, DoD, and Los Alamos alum, is re-opening the first Uranium enrichment site in the exact place the last one was closed in 2013: Paducah, Kentucky.

Nuclear power has been in the news a lot this year. All the big tech companies are investing in new nuclear capacity to power their AI projects. It could possibly lead to a green energy revolution -- a world where we have unlimited clean power.

New nuclear capacity is great, but as Scott Nolan of General Matter asked, "Who is going to fuel them?" (via @micsolana's @PirateWires)

The answer right now is foreign countries, including Russia. And the way this current administration is alienating both friends and rivals, we can't rely on global partners.

Incredibly, these news stories were generally met with a collective *yawn.* Maybe we've grown accustomed to the rapid pace of AI. Maybe energy development is just boring.

But these technologies are shaping our world. And they come with big questions:

Will we develop new energy capacity to keep pace with the demand of AI?

If so, what type of world will we choose to live in? A green Utopia that saves our environment? Or an all-consuming virtual world that replaces reality?

[Ben Putano 📚 @BenjaminPutano]

Ramp raised $500M. Anthropic raising $5B. Figma just had the most successful first day IPO in 30 years.

Did you know the SAME firm led Anthropic and Ramp's massive rounds?

And that firm ALSO seed-funded Figma?

@ICONIQCapital is having helluva week.

[Ben Putano 📚 @BenjaminPutano]

Figma goes public today. Their success is no accident. They are built on a beautiful strategy, which has led to eye-popping unit economics. Check out these numbers:

- 46% year-over-year growth
- $821 million LTM (last twelve months) revenue
- 91% gross margins
- 132% net dollar retention

That's just the start.

They have also captured 95% of the Fortune 500, and 70% of enterprise users started with personal plans--indicating strong, organic bottoms-up growth.

Most impressive: 2/3 of their users are now NON-designers.

@jasonlk has a great Substack post on Figma's unit economics. Highly recommend a read.

But I want to talk about Figma's strategy. What makes it special?

Richard Rumelt defines the kernel of strategy as three parts:

1. Diagnosis
2. Guiding policy
3. Coherent actions

1. Figma's Diagnosis: The nature of design--especially web design--has changed. Adobe was built for single users, but web designers work in teams. Figma knew that they needed to be a team-first design tool.

2. Figma's Guiding Policy: As such, Dylan Field and his co-founders spent 4 years perfecting its multi-user features before launching Figma.

3. Figma's Coherent Actions: Since then, every product and feature has been built around team use: FigJam (collaborative wireframing), Figma Slides, Figma Buzz, and Figma Web are all multi-user tools.

The beauty of coherent strategy is that it has positive, secondary consequences. Because of Figma's multi-user policy, it has built-in natural virality. Team members invite each other to collaborate, which leads to strong bottoms-up growth.

In 2023, Figma was set to be acquired by Adobe for $20 billion. Today, Figma is IPOing at $19.3 billion.

And this is just the beginning.

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

What are your most-highlighted books?

[Ben Putano 📚 @BenjaminPutano]

The US government is trying to stop renewable energy, but it might be too late. Solar, in particular, just reached a tipping point without anyone realizing.

Author Bill McKibben shared numerous data points in an excerpt from his new book.

Here are the first four:

1. It took from the invention of the photovoltaic solar cell, in 1954, until 2022 for the world to install a terawatt of solar power; the second terawatt came just two years later, and the third will arrive either later this year or early next.

2. People are now putting up a gigawatt’s worth of solar panels, the rough equivalent of the power generated by one coal-fired plant, every fifteen hour. Solar power is now growing faster than any power source in history, and it is closely followed by wind power—which is really another form of energy from the sun, since it is differential heating of the earth that produces the wind that turns the turbines.

3. Last year, ninety-six per cent of the global demand for new electricity was met by renewables, and in the United States ninety-three per cent of new generating capacity came from solar, wind, and an ever-increasing variety of batteries to store that power.

4. In March, for the first time, fossil fuels generated less than half the electricity in the U.S. In California, at one point on May 25th, renewables were producing a record hundred and fifty-eight per cent of the state’s power demand. Over the course of the entire day, they produced eighty-two per cent of the power in California, which, this spring, surpassed Japan to become the world’s fourth-largest economy.

McKibben goes on to share that Texas is building more solar than California and reduced its chances of a power blackout from 16% to less than 1%. Elsewhere, China is now producing half the world’s solar power while also supplying energy revolutions in the Middle East and Africa.

What’s astounding is how wrong our predictions about solar have been. When it comes to technologies like microchips, we have a pretty good sense of the pace of change (aka Moore’s Law). With solar energy, we are continually surprised.

McKibben: “In 2009, the International Energy Agency predicted that we would hit two hundred and forty-four gigawatts of solar capacity by 2030; we hit it by 2015... For most of the past decade, the I.E.A.’s five-year forecasts missed by an average of two hundred and thirty-five per cent.”

Despite efforts of the US government to stall renewable energy build outs, we may have already reached a tipping point.

Solar, wind, and battery technology have become so inexpensive and efficient that we will keep building.

Energy is everything, and we are finally on the verge of harnessing more than we could ever imagine.

[Damn Gravity Book Company @damngrav]

No Small Plans™️ were made in the signing of this author 🚀🚀🚀

Welcome @MikeShannonMJS

[Ben Putano 📚 @BenjaminPutano]

More exciting news this week. I'm thrilled to announce Damn Gravity's newest author signing, @MikeShannonMJS 🚀🚀🚀

Mike has had a wild startup journey. While working as a ball boy for the Chicago Bulls (during prime D-Rose era), he went on Shark Tank and secured an investment from Mark Cuban. Last year, Mike's startup, Packback, was acquired for tens of millions.

I read Mike's new book, Sweaty Equity, in one weekend. It's funny, exciting, thought-provoking, and completely original.

And I'm not alone... Mark Cuban called it "A wildly entertaining story!"

I tell entrepreneurs all the time... PUT DOWN the formulaic "how to" book and pick up a memoir. You'll learn more from real founder stories like Mike's than any 7-step framework.

'Sweaty Equity' should be read by every founder and startup joiner. You'll see yourself in Mike's journey and know you're not alone. You'll laugh a lot too.

(Bonus if you're a basketball fan -- Mike's ball boy stories are equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking... especially for D Rose fans.)

Thank you to @ericmillsio for introducing me to Mike, and @JohnBuschVI for recommending Damn Gravity. This will be our 8th title and 4th(!) this year.

Mike is also our FIRST Chicago author!!

Sweaty Equity will be released July 22! Join us at Three Cities Social for Mike's Book Launch Party during Chicago Tech Week.

Pre-order the book today! L!nk in the C0mm3nts 😎

[Ben Putano 📚 @BenjaminPutano]

The Damn Gravity book shelf is growing 📚📚📕

[Ben Putano 📚 @BenjaminPutano]

Book Launch success!! 🚀🚀🚀

Congrats @ramli

[Damn Gravity Book Company @damngrav]

@nateliason This is so true and great advice

[Damn Gravity Book Company @damngrav]

Books bring people together

[Ben Putano 📚 @BenjaminPutano]

Starting Damn Gravity in the pandemic meant I never met my first few authors in person.

I am SO excited to meet @RamliJohn irl next week when he visits Chicago for his book launch party.

You should meet him too! If you're in tech, product, customer success, marketing, or Startupland in general, join us on Tuesday night.

link in the comments

[Damn Gravity Book Company @damngrav]

Think clearly, write confidently, move courageously

[Ben Putano 📚 @BenjaminPutano]

There's a new study from MIT suggesting that writing with AI is terrible for your brain.

It's a relatively small and preliminary study but it matches my personal experience using LLMs to outsource my thinking.

Writing is a thought exercise. Literally. If you don't do it, your muscles will atrophy.

This is why I wrote Great Founders Write. It's part manifesto, part guidebook to help you think and act clearly *through* writing.

H/t @itsalexvacca for sharing the study and helping it go viral. Much needed wake up call

[Damn Gravity Book Company @damngrav]

@BenjaminPutano Think clearly, write confidently, move courageously

[Ben Putano 📚 @BenjaminPutano]

Chicago startup and product people!

Join me on Tuesday, June 24 for the launch of @RamliJohn's new book, "Eureka: The Product Onboarding Playbook for B2B Companies"

Come for the food, the drinks, and the conversation about turning new customers into raving fans.

Hosted by the inimitable @DrayDrayW at Three Cities Social.

Link in the comments to RSVP!

[Ben Putano 📚 @BenjaminPutano]

So incredibly excited and proud to announce Damn Gravity's next title: 'Fundraising for the Rest of Us' by Allison Byers.

I first met Allison when writing "Great Founders Write" in 2021. Her 10-step fundraising pitch framework was so clear, so succinct, that it stuck with me for years. I always hoped she would turn it into a book.

Then I learned more about Allison's mission behind Scroobious and the pitch framework. Less than 2% of VC investment goes to women, and even less goes to founders of color. This is despite the fact that women (and especially black women) are the fastest growing cohort of business owners in the US. Allison's personal experience trying to raise a Series B opened her eyes to the systemic failures of VC, so she decided to do something about it.

Damn Gravity's mission is to inspire and educate the next generation of great startup builders. That generation *needs* to be more diverse. Not just because it's the right thing to do — it's also the smart thing. Global problems require global solutions from every corner of society.

'Fundraising for the Rest of Us' will be released late 2025/early 2026. In the meantime, follow Allison's journey via her newsletter, and even become a beta reader!

https://t.co/mPETObjIhS

[Damn Gravity Book Company @damngrav]

Make no small plans 🚀

[Lulu Cheng Meservey @lulumeservey]

A good slogan is critical for starting a movement

- Make America great again
- Yes we can
- Time to build
- No taxation without representation
- Keep calm and carry on
- Move fast and break things
- Just do it
- Workers of the world, unite
- Think different

The best slogan is one that gets stuck in people’s heads and represents one clear central idea

[Ben Putano 📚 @BenjaminPutano]

First bookstore sale is in the books!

72 copies of The Experimentation Machine are heading to The Coop in Boston

[Damn Gravity Book Company @damngrav]

Chicago founders, join us tomorrow at Founder Fridays at Marshall's Landing!

We'll have coffee, bagels, and book giveaways. Come meet great entrepreneurs in the city.

https://t.co/H0CQOwhC48

[Damn Gravity Book Company @damngrav]

@BenjaminPutano The OG 🫡

[Ben Putano 📚 @BenjaminPutano]

Maybe I should update this with content on writing alongside AI?