Mark Castillo

👋 webdev, occasionally RT

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

"If you want to do great work it's an advantage to be optimistic, even though that means you'll risk looking like a fool sometimes."

Paul Graham on earnestness and doing great work:

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

The pace of AI remains insane 🤯

All these announcements in the last 7 days:

Zapier AI
Bard Images
Mind to Video
Google AI Ads
Photoshop Fill
Bing x ChatGPT
Windows Copilot
Perplexity Copilot
DragGAN Image AI
Google SoundStorm

Here's everything you need to know:

[Yin Wu @yinyinwu]

There's a lot of advice on how to scale a startup...

But there's little on how to shut down a company when things aren't working.

Here are the tactics for dissolving a startup, and what to tell investors to get them to fund your next bet 👇

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

2022 YC Year in Review

There are now 316 alumni valued at over $150M

80 are valued at over $1B

Total value of YC companies is over $600B

Many thanks for an amazing year ⁦@gralston⁩ 🙏 https://t.co/bb7ScGaMQe

[Michael Seibel @mwseibel]

I’ve found that YC founders, consciously or subconsciously, choose to meet with a particular YC partner to consume a very specific experience (like choosing a restaurant).

[Michael Seibel @mwseibel]

It's surprising how often startups will copy their competitor's features rather than talk to their users. The best startups understand they cannot outsource one of the most important parts of building a successful product.

[10-K Diver @10kdiver]

1/

Get a cup of coffee.

In this thread, I'll walk you through the art and science of valuing a company.

The Goal: We want to figure out how much a company is worth -- so we know what's a good price to pay for its shares.

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

Moni uses a community-driven model based on social trust to provide financing to mobile money agents across Africa, achieving 99% repayment with 10,000+ loans disbursed so far.

Welcome to YC, @femi_iromini, @Adesobayo, and team @moni_africa!

https://t.co/nMuWPf1AgE

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

We're excited to announce our new standard deal at Y Combinator.

When a company is accepted into YC, we now invest a total of $500,000.

@gralston shares more on our blog:
https://t.co/UVkUcAaUrQ

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

We're hiring for a programs & ops person with a recruiting background to help scale YC's https://t.co/qTuTlNm4Ho platform, where we helped ~600 people find jobs in 2021 alone.

If you or someone you know might be a fit, check out the role and apply here: https://t.co/AT8P3zHGJ2

[Shriya Nevatia @shriyanevatia]

OK so who wants to break into VC in 2022?

👀💰🚀

[10-K Diver @10kdiver]

1/

Get a cup of coffee.

In this thread, I'll walk you through a somewhat counter-intuitive relationship:

When a company is aggressively buying back shares, long-term owners can actually *benefit* if the company's stock price stays low for a while.

[Kolby Hatch @HatchKolby]

Chrome is used by 2.65 BILLION people.

That's ~56% of all internet users. You're probably one of them.

95% of my job is done inside Chrome. So a few years back, I learned 6 hotkeys to use Chrome FASTER.

Here they are 👇

[GV @GVteam]

“Optimism, creativity, and grit are three essential tools in my design process. I approach every problem knowing there is a solution,” says GV Lead Operations Partner @katearonowitz in @FastCompany — https://t.co/lzMfnRAkEH

[Mark Castillo @markcastillo]

@garyvee 👋

[seedphrase @seedphrase]

Nobody cares about how many dollars are in your bank account, how many Lambos you own, or your rare baseball card.

We only care about jpegs. This is the only flex metric that matters.

[Gary Vaynerchuk @garyvee]

big day

[Mark Castillo @markcastillo]

@DeadAssNFTs @bobbyhundreds 🔥🔥🔥

[thefunnyguys.eth/tez @thefunnyguysNFT]

OpenSea currently has a total of 150K unique collectors.

On the 20th of November 2010, there were 150K unique bitcoin wallets. One bitcoin was worth $0.28.

It's still early.

[bobbyhundreds @bobbyhundreds]

It's crazy how NFTs are repeating what streetwear lived through 20 years ago. Remember how I call streetwear brands "Adjective Animals" in my book? Bored Apes, Pudgy Penguins, and Cool Cats are the new Bathing Apes, Pink Dolphins, Red Monkeys...