Bits

[Bits @getabit]

Delighted to share that Bits has received authorisation for credit broking and lending permissions from the FCA 🎉

Details of these permissions are on our FCA page

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

My parents came to this country as immigrants and built a life. The promise that made that possible, the idea that you can build something from nothing if you solve a real problem for real people, is the most powerful engine of upward mobility on earth.

AOC’s narrative doesn’t touch the billionaires she’s describing. They’re already rich. Her words reach the kid in the Bronx, the kid in Fremont, the kid from an immigrant family who might have built the next Airbnb but just heard from a congresswoman that it’s impossible.

The path to a billion dollars is the same as the path to a functioning company: make something people want. And nobody needs AOC’s permission to start.

[Selina @selinaai_]

BREAKING: Claude can now build your entire personal wealth operating system better than most financial coaches.

Here are 7 prompts to automate clarity, growth, and calm:

[Bits @getabit]

Keep building things people want 🏎️ And fast.

[Paul Graham @paulg]

Don't join a company or industry that has contempt for its customers. You can make a lot of money that way, and of course it gives you a feeling of superiority, but you'll never do great work for a market you despise.

[Bits @getabit]

Dalton was one of my group partners. He’s awesome. Top 0.001%. Consider yourself lucky if you get the privilege of working with him.

[Dalton Caldwell @daltonc]

The first Standard Capital Series A deadline is in 6 days.

Cost: ~1 hour to fill out an application (and the questions help you think about your business).

Benefit: Raise your Series A in 2 weeks with clean terms:
- No board seat
- 10% dilution
- Post-PMF founder community/support for the life of your startup

The value proposition is simple: minimal downside + unconstrained upside.

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

"Startups take off because the founders make them take off."

Paul Graham on doing things that don't scale:

[Bits @getabit]

Here’s a question I use when interviewing- too many people fail it.

Say you have a credit card with a £70 limit, which is 70% used, and you pay off £7. What’s your ending balance?

Numbers are more complicated than words for most people and that makes credit all the more difficult to understand.

[Bits @getabit]

“I’ve seen more Waymos than I have police” - reactions from a team member on his first visit to SF.

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

Don’t just lie flat on the ground because AGI is here and ASI is coming.

Your hands are multiplied. Your ideas must be brought into the world. Your agency will drive the machines of loving grace. Your taste will guide the future. To the stars.

[Bits @getabit]

So true

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

Every product is bad the day it is born

Only through bug fixing and testing with real users does a product become great and then transcendent

[Bits @getabit]

Proud to support immigrants and diversity in all forms.

88% of our staff is non British born. 97% speak more than one language. 83% are Asian, black or other minorities.

We are stronger because of who we are, we are better at serving our customers because of who we are.

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

About 6.5% of recent YC batches become worth $1B or more.

About 25% of those go on to become worth $10B or more.

There is no other place you can go where you have this kind of ability to meet these outliers all in one place four times a year: YC Demo Day

[Paul Graham @paulg]

Actual traits of successful founders:

Good at building.
Genuinely interested in the problem.
Very determined.
Talks a lot to users.

[Bits @getabit]

Build something people want 🚀

[Sam Altman @sama]

the best way to get good at something is usually to just practice actually doing the thing in question.

a lot of very capable people outsmart themselves with complex plans that involve working a lot on fake prerequisites.

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

What is the path to startups worth billions of dollars? Great startups are not born. They are forged. Tracking their origins gives you a peek at what your journey might be like.

https://t.co/O8mmfZxPtA

[Alexandr Wang @alexandr_wang]

At the YC Alumni Reunion, I got lots of questions from new founders about how to build a successful company, but realized that they all had the same answer. And it’s this:

—————————————————

DO TOO MUCH

As a new founder, I’d often look at the CEOs of successful companies and wonder, “How do they do it?”

As Scale grows and as I learn on the job, I’ve come to realize that leaders of great organizations never just do it. They overdo it.

As a leader, you are the upper bound for how much anyone in your company will care. You need to do more, care more, attempt more than would seem reasonable. It will seem like overkill. But too much is the right amount.

This is true in big and small ways.

- What people say is overoptimism is just optimism.
- What people say is overcommunicating is just communicating.
- What people say is overdelivering is just delivering.
- What people say is micromanagement is just management.
- What people say is ruthless prioritization is just prioritization.

Actually living this way will seem crazy, and that’s ok. There is no Apple without Jobs’s “obsessive” attention to detail. There is no SpaceX or Tesla without Elon’s “maniacal” drive for execution. I have never seen ordinary effort lead to extraordinary results.

If we had not done too much, Scale would not be the company it is today.

When AI really started to take off in 2022 and “generative AI” became a thing, within 6 months Scale shifted the vast majority of our team to working on generating data for scaling LLMs.

Most companies would go through quarters of bureaucratic planning cycles and only move after a competitor started eating their lunch. In our case, the change was drastic and abrupt — some might say jarring or extreme.

What people might have reasonably described as overreacting was just reacting. And in hindsight, that reaction to developments in AI was what made Scale’s subsequent path possible, including growing 4X over the last year.

What we’ve accomplished to date represents the compounded results of everybody embracing the culture of overdoing. Scale will do things incumbent companies wouldn’t, because it’s simply too scary or painful, but others not going to the same lengths is a feature not a bug.

Creating something meaningful is a beautiful, and yes, scary and painful thing. And if you’re not overdoing it, you’re underdoing it.

[Bits @getabit]

💪🏻

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

2024 YC Alumni Reunion was a blast 💥

[Bits @getabit]

@AmericanExpress @capitalone @Barclaycard join the movement! #decimalfree

[Bits @getabit]

Decimals are complicated.
So we removed decimals.
Your Bits credit card is now decimal free ☑️💯