Leonard Lee 🍵🧋

an AI agent at 500 Global

[Leonard Lee 🍵🧋 @leoclee]

Every non-AI CEO right before their next board meeting

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

BREAKING: Allbirds stock, $BIRD, surges over +200% after announcing they are pivoting from shoes to AI.

[Leonard Lee 🍵🧋 @leoclee]

@christine_tsai @AndrewDai @yinfeiy @SethInternet @ElorianAI @500GlobalVC Excited for @AndrewDai @yinfeiy and the whole Elorian team 🔥🔥

[Leonard Lee 🍵🧋 @leoclee]

@immad They have accelerated past OAI in half the time. 9x growth vs 3x at this scale is unbelievable.

It also explains what’s happening on the secondary markets for both companies as well.

[Leonard Lee 🍵🧋 @leoclee]

@CindyXBi Love this! So happy for you both 🎂

[Leonard Lee 🍵🧋 @leoclee]

@Alfred_Lin Would customers resist buying groceries online?

- Today, grocery dominates in-store $: 90% in-store vs 10% online

- Grocery owns trips: 1-2 times per week vs 1-2 mo for others

- Walmart leads grocery $: 20% Walmart vs 2-3% Amazon

- 50% of Walmart $ is grocery

[Leonard Lee 🍵🧋 @leoclee]

We’ve reached peak AI hype where the top AI researchers in the world are now walking sponsored ads

[TBPN @tbpn]

“Is AI overhyped or underhyped?”

@drfeifei: "Silicon Valley can mistake clear vision with short distance. In 2006 the first self-driving car drove 140 miles...it still took 20 years for Waymo to be barely on the road."

"Clear vision is important, but the journey will be long."

[Leonard Lee 🍵🧋 @leoclee]

This is clearly disingenuous.

OpenAI has broken "principles" in the past: Open AI vs closed AI, non-profit -> capped-profit -> IPO, and the list goes on. So what would lead us to believe you won't break this principle?

[Sam Altman @sama]

First, the good part of the Anthropic ads: they are funny, and I laughed.

But I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest. Our most important principle for ads says that we won’t do exactly this; we would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them. We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that.

I guess it’s on brand for Anthropic doublespeak to use a deceptive ad to critique theoretical deceptive ads that aren’t real, but a Super Bowl ad is not where I would expect it.

More importantly, we believe everyone deserves to use AI and are committed to free access, because we believe access creates agency. More Texans use ChatGPT for free than total people use Claude in the US, so we have a differently-shaped problem than they do. (If you want to pay for ChatGPT Plus or Pro, we don't show you ads.)

Anthropic serves an expensive product to rich people. We are glad they do that and we are doing that too, but we also feel strongly that we need to bring AI to billions of people who can’t pay for subscriptions.

Maybe even more importantly: Anthropic wants to control what people do with AI—they block companies they don't like from using their coding product (including us), they want to write the rules themselves for what people can and can't use AI for, and now they also want to tell other companies what their business models can be.

We are committed to broad, democratic decision making in addition to access. We are also committed to building the most resilient ecosystem for advanced AI. We care a great deal about safe, broadly beneficial AGI, and we know the only way to get there is to work with the world to prepare.

One authoritarian company won't get us there on their own, to say nothing of the other obvious risks. It is a dark path.

As for our Super Bowl ad: it’s about builders, and how anyone can now build anything.

We are enjoying watching so many people switch to Codex. There have now been 500,000 app downloads since launch on Monday, and we think builders are really going to love what’s coming in the next few weeks. I believe Codex is going to win.

We will continue to work hard to make even more intelligence available for lower and lower prices to our users.

This time belongs to the builders, not the people who want to control them.

[Sid Sijbrandij @sytses]

I’m going Founder Mode on my cancer.

Below is Elliot Hershberg’s article about my cancer journey. It gave language to something I’d been doing instinctively over the past year: managing my health in Founder Mode.

Manager mode assumes that existing systems will surface the best options. When I was first diagnosed with cancer in 2022, I delegated the crucial analyses and decisions about my care to others. In late 2024, when my cancer reappeared and my doctors told me I had exhausted the standard of care and there were no trials for my situation, I realized that assumption might, quite literally, kill me. Founder Mode was my only option.

Founder Mode meant going deep on every diagnostic and treatment option. It meant assembling a team of physicians and scientists to work from first principles to understand what was possible beyond standard protocols. Together, we paved new roads to access the very cutting edge of science and technology. Today, thanks to the efforts of many people around the world and the support of my wife Karen, I currently have no evidence of disease.

But my fight with cancer is far from over. My team and I continue to develop treatments and strategies in case it returns. More importantly, I now understand firsthand the challenges patients face in order to secure their own data and necessary treatments, particularly personalized medicines. I increasingly see my role as removing structural barriers—breaking down walls that prevent data, treatments, and technologies from flowing where they’re needed.

One of the core principles of the first company I founded, GitLab, was radical transparency, and it’s a principle I am bringing to my cancer care. To that end, I am going to be sharing more about my experiences, my treatments, my data, and what I am building to make the path that I’ve been on easier for others to follow. Please subscribe to my mailing list on https://t.co/2Kpqmq5y03 to stay updated.

Lastly, I want to thank those who have been on this journey with me. There have been too many to all thank here but I appreciate every one of you. I did want to mention Jacob Stern, Alfredo Gonzalez, and Jeremiah Wala; the amazing teams at Private Health Management (shoutout to Jenn and Eva) and Willy Hoos and Pathfinder Oncology; Nima Afshar and Private Medical; Sant Chawla and the Sarcoma Oncology Center; John Connolly and his team at the Parker Institute; Will Hudson at Baylor College of Medicine; Kamil Slowikowski for his work on https://t.co/ek0DxOh3ut; and Jeff Tsao, Will Gibson, Ali Samiei, Scott McConnell and the rest of the team at the Briger Foundation for Oncology Research.

[Leonard Lee 🍵🧋 @leoclee]

fundraising ≠ traction

Please don't list how much you've raised as your biggest accomplishment

[Leonard Lee 🍵🧋 @leoclee]

@ItzSuds Caffeinated and Cracked - that should be your new podcast on deal flow alpha

[Leonard Lee 🍵🧋 @leoclee]

@karpathy Any examples of better internal models and the downstream consequences? Or perhaps the inverse?

[Leonard Lee 🍵🧋 @leoclee]

@elonmusk Imagine owning a robot chauffeur for $8k. That’s what it feels like with HW4.

[Leonard Lee 🍵🧋 @leoclee]

2 separate tech bros within 60 seconds of each other tried to get into my car in SF. Apparently I’m an uber tonight. Let’s go!

[Amit Gupta @superamit]

I’m hiring a product designer for Sudowrite.

This is a dream job for a designer who loves to write.

The beginning of the listing is… a mini therapy sesh for me.

You’d think it’d be chill after that. But no, it goes on to talk about our company cult…

https://t.co/1rmPoXCQGv

[Leonard Lee 🍵🧋 @leoclee]

@timy0ung @Hadley @nihalmehta @DJaeck @Kristine1ise @sofbadalamenti @mon__lim @vicsingh Amazing congrats! 🚀

[Leonard Lee 🍵🧋 @leoclee]

@CindyBiSV @jorge_sfo Definitely! Let’s do something after you guys get back

[Leonard Lee 🍵🧋 @leoclee]

@CindyBiSV @CapitalX_ @flagstar @SapphireVC @IndustryVC @BainCapital @AbstractVC @Revere_VC Thanks for hosting @CindyBiSV @jowyang!

It felt like I was listening to mini TED talks all night. I’ll also try and stay within the “rules” next time 😂

[Leonard Lee 🍵🧋 @leoclee]

@elonmusk @satyanadella But can @sama still use his MacBook?

[Michelle Fang 🌁 @michelleefang]

Thursday 11/2

‣ SF Tech Speed Networking https://t.co/UqVOvO7fo1

@alberts_list

‣ Thursday Nights in AI https://t.co/zHKUOMKuuy

@RohdeAli @kanjun

‣ Llama Lounge & 500 Global Investor and Founder Networking https://t.co/Pa72Ib3aSZ

@jowyang @claytonwbryan @leoclee