ricardo

investing + research + data @paradigm

[ricardo @notawizard]

Applications are now open for the 2026 Paradigm Fellowship: a 4-day retreat for young people who are obsessively good at something technical.

For our fourth year, we're expanding to welcome builders across every frontier — AI, robotics, energy, bio, prediction markets, or something we haven't thought of.

Last year's cohort came from 10 countries. Some were undergrads, some were dropouts, some were founders, some came from OpenAI, SpaceX, Citadel, and Kalshi.

The format is simple: firesides, whiteboarding sessions, and time to hack. What makes it special is what happens in between, and after. Fellows have met cofounders, started companies, and gone on to raise from Paradigm and others.

I was a fellow before joining Paradigm, the retreat was a transformative trip for me, and I met some of my closest friends through the program.

Apply by June 8th. Retreat runs August 12–15th.

[ricardo @notawizard]

@yitong noo you leaked my alpha

[ricardo @notawizard]

@dapanji_eth @Dapanji Checking! Thx

[ricardo @notawizard]

@deoidh Good point. We are still definitely interested in the frontier of crypto! We figured this would be self-evident given our background. But will update the website to mention it

[ricardo @notawizard]

Applications are now open for the 2026 Paradigm Fellowship: a 4-day retreat for young people who are obsessively good at something technical.

For our fourth year, we're expanding to welcome builders across every frontier — AI, robotics, energy, bio, prediction markets, or something we haven't thought of.

Last year's cohort came from 10 countries. Some were undergrads, some were dropouts, some were founders, some came from OpenAI, SpaceX, Citadel, and Kalshi.

The format is simple: firesides, whiteboarding sessions, and time to hack. What makes it special is what happens in between, and after. Fellows have met cofounders, started companies, and gone on to raise from Paradigm and others.

I was a fellow before joining Paradigm, the retreat was a transformative trip for me, and I met some of my closest friends through the program.

Apply by June 8th. Retreat runs August 12–15th.

[ricardo @notawizard]

More information here: https://t.co/voZmKbPLcI

[ricardo @notawizard]

this was the first "hackathon" i attended since moving to sf and now i’m worried it permanently destroyed my baseline for what a hackathon is supposed to achieve

[donald @donaldjewkes]

two friends used AI to clone Epstein's Gmail

it's been used by over 150 million people

and it was built in just 5 hours – here's how they did it

[ricardo @notawizard]

@PixieChess @paradigm LFG!

[ricardo @notawizard]

time to lock in

the only way out is through

[jack @jack]

we're making @blocks smaller today. here's my note to the company.

####

today we're making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: we're reducing our organization by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. that means over 4,000 of you are being asked to leave or entering into consultation. i'll be straight about what's happening, why, and what it means for everyone.

first off, if you're one of the people affected, you'll receive your salary for 20 weeks + 1 week per year of tenure, equity vested through the end of may, 6 months of health care, your corporate devices, and $5,000 to put toward whatever you need to help you in this transition (if you’re outside the U.S. you’ll receive similar support but exact details are going to vary based on local requirements). i want you to know that before anything else. everyone will be notified today, whether you're being asked to leave, entering consultation, or asked to stay.

we're not making this decision because we're in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. but something has changed. we're already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. and that's accelerating rapidly.

i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now. i chose the latter. repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead. i'd rather take a hard, clear action now and build from a position we believe in than manage a slow reduction of people toward the same outcome. a smaller company also gives us the space to grow our business the right way, on our own terms, instead of constantly reacting to market pressures.

a decision at this scale carries risk. but so does standing still. we've done a full review to determine the roles and people we require to reliably grow the business from here, and we've pressure-tested those decisions from multiple angles. i accept that we may have gotten some of them wrong, and we've built in flexibility to account for that, and do the right thing for our customers.

we're not going to just disappear people from slack and email and pretend they were never here. communication channels will stay open through thursday evening (pacific) so everyone can say goodbye properly, and share whatever you wish. i'll also be hosting a live video session to thank everyone at 3:35pm pacific. i know doing it this way might feel awkward. i'd rather it feel awkward and human than efficient and cold.

to those of you leaving…i’m grateful for you, and i’m sorry to put you through this. you built what this company is today. that's a fact that i'll honor forever. this decision is not a reflection of what you contributed. you will be a great contributor to any organization going forward.

to those staying…i made this decision, and i'll own it. what i'm asking of you is to build with me. we're going to build this company with intelligence at the core of everything we do. how we work, how we create, how we serve our customers. our customers will feel this shift too, and we're going to help them navigate it: towards a future where they can build their own features directly, composed of our capabilities and served through our interfaces. that's what i'm focused on now. expect a note from me tomorrow.

jack

[ricardo @notawizard]

@rtwlz congrats to OpenAI for getting Riley!!

[Alpin Yukseloglu @0xalpo]

new collab from @paradigm and @OpenAI:

evmbench is a benchmark and agent harness for exploiting smart contract bugs

a few months ago, the best models found <20% of critical, fund-draining @Code4rena bugs in our benchmark. today they find > 70%

[ricardo @notawizard]

clears throat*

if you think new friends are negative roi you just have a skill issue

[Pankaj @the2ndfloorguy]

https://t.co/cV8xxvnR2z

[ricardo @notawizard]

@SarahChieng for coffee shops: check out silence please

and we have a big office with a coworking in SoHo, you can use it while you're here. I can DM you the details

[ricardo @notawizard]

@marcusychua @Theoryvc @ttunguz @SpencerFarrar Congrats! Theory is lucky to have you

[ricardo @notawizard]

@bqbrady any examples?

my experience was the opposite, opus was significantly better at doing iterative data science work

[ricardo @notawizard]

@jasonyuan > alexander mcqueen spring/summer 1995
exceptional taste

[ricardo @notawizard]

3G's formula was to find the most intense PSD kids (poor, smart, deep desire to get rich) and give them the opportunity to dream big

I'm forever grateful they showed what a group of Brazilian outsiders can accomplish on the global stage. I wouldn't be here without their example

[Colossus @colossusmag]

The story of 3G Capital involves Roger Federer, Sam Walton, and Warren Buffett. It includes the biggest beer company on earth, the biggest footwear deal in history, and a ketchup bottle with Charlie Munger's face on it.

It also involves accusations of 'chainsaw capitalism,' CEOs driving freight trains, and billion-dollar companies being handed to kids in their twenties.

Buffett called it the best management culture he'd ever seen.

But, until now, the story behind the culture has never been told by the people who carry it forward. In truth, 3G would prefer you had never heard of it.

The firm began in New York in 2004. But the real story starts in the seventies, off the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, when Jorge Paulo Lemann bought a brokerage for $800,000 and built a model for running businesses unlike anything else in Brazil.

The model has since produced the biggest investment bank in Brazil, the world’s largest brewer, the third-largest restaurant company, and turned hundreds of employees into multimillionaires.

In 3G Capital, it has also produced a rare kind of investing partnership, one where each fund holds exactly one company, the partners are the largest investors in every fund, they work the businesses themselves, and they have never lost money on a deal.

Almost everything written about the firm notes that managing partners Alex Behring and Daniel Schwartz did not respond for comment.

For Colossus, they sat for hours of interviews at their Manhattan office.

@domcooke tells the full story of how this secretive firm with fewer than 30 employees has built some of the world's biggest companies.

[ricardo @notawizard]

@letclaudiatweet "It's 1am -- do you still want me to order the Raspberry Pi, or call it a night and you order on your phone?"

poor clawd

[ricardo @notawizard]

how do i tell her its actually *six* different claude code tabs

[ricardo @notawizard]

@gakonst mogging everyone so far

[frankie @FrankieIsLost]

this is a really great test for AI tool proficiency, since it requires working with long-running tasks, multi-step reasoning, tool use and iterative debugging.

here's a leaderboard for it if you want to enter the arena:

[ricardo @notawizard]

@bearablylight @a16z @liangsays super well deserved

congrats!