phil chacko

I build things that help people create.

[phil chacko @philchacko]

New personal portfolio site. Lemme know what y'all think.

https://t.co/1bZMoFacfI

[phil chacko @philchacko]

@DDrolapas Unrealized gains.

[phil chacko @philchacko]

If you figure out who's in the middle, I'd love to talk to them too! AGI vision + early production-grade deploys.

Have heard good things about Ultra but I don't know them. Just met a founder who did some interesting stuff for Scale and left a month ago to tackle this intersection.

[phil chacko @philchacko]

Great news! Supernatural was a great treadmill substitute for me during the pandemic.

[Nima Zeighami @NimaZeighami]

Imagine paying half a billion dollars to own a company and then just…spinning it out…

Oh well, congrats to my former colleagues and good friends at Supernatural Health! Cheers to your newfound independence!

https://t.co/Q9EIfsxKB9

[phil chacko @philchacko]

@GeneralistAI 🎉

[phil chacko @philchacko]

@suchenzang Omg your team was insane. Hadn’t seen anything like it. Did not know that happened but I can guess who!

[phil chacko @philchacko]

@Noahpinion Now they gotta get those housing starts way up.

[phil chacko @philchacko]

@ReidChalker @admcrlsn My rent went up 10% this month, owned by a small landlord.

How does that have anything to do with developer interests other than them not being able to build more housing for me to shop around?

[phil chacko @philchacko]

@admcrlsn Wiener's going to win this one in a walk. Won't be close.

[phil chacko @philchacko]

@rohitdotmittal What needs to change with SF voters and in what direction? Not clear from your tweet.

Looks like SF voters voted down the Overpaid CEO Proposition fwiw.

[phil chacko @philchacko]

@michaelthatsit Naw I just had to blow away half my tabs.

[phil chacko @philchacko]

Anybody else annoyed that the new Google Calendar and Docs logos are so similar?

[phil chacko @philchacko]

@BayAreaNewLibs What's the point of good PR if you don't spend the political capital you gain from it?

[phil chacko @philchacko]

@emilyinvc I'm never sure so I always go with PT.

[phil chacko @philchacko]

@gravicle Will DM!

[phil chacko @philchacko]

By all means, work hard. But it’s about mission outcomes, not hours in. Anyone who’s competitive will put in the work.

[phil chacko @philchacko]

There is not a single human on this planet who grinded 100 hrs/wk for Bank of America in the 2000s and wouldn’t want that time back.

Grindslop marketing your company just says you’re an immature founder, or psychopathic.

[Harry Stebbings @HarryStebbings]

"If you are not working 7 days per week, you are going to lose".

Corgi Insurance is the most intense workplace culture in startups.

- The company works 7 days per week.

- Founder (@nico_laqua) lives and sleeps in the office.

- He built a cafe in the office because there was no local cafe that was open 24/7.

- 2/3 of the first 30 team members have the Corgi logo as a tattoo.

Today I went behind the scenes with Nico, who has used this culture to scale the company to a $2.6BN valuation in just two years.

My condensed notes below:

1. If You Are Not Working 7 Days Per Week, You Are Going to Lose:

Whatever you can get done in 5 days, you'll get more done in 6 and 7. If you are trying to solve the world’s hardest problems, a standard 5-day workweek will not cut it.

2. Work Trials Repel the Mediocre:

Corgi forces candidates into mock work trials over the weekend. If seeing a full office on a Saturday scares them, they don't belong. True intensity acts as a natural filter to attract killers and repel clock-watchers.

3. Lead from the Front Lines

You can’t demand 7-day weeks while sitting on a yacht. Nico sleeps 3–4 hours a night on a mattress inside the office. If you want your troops to bleed, you have to be in the trenches with them.

4. Culture Only Means One Thing: Winning

Forget superficial jargon like "hackers" or "ex-founders." Strip away the corporate fluff. A great startup culture is aggressively optimized around one single word: Winning.

5. Lifespan vs. Victories

Building something world-historic requires radical sacrifice. When asked if he'd rather build a trillion-dollar company and die at 50, or fail and live to 80, the answer was easy. "I would rather measure my lifespan in victories."

6. Reject the Comfort of "Quiet Quitting."

If you are operating in a hyper-growth environment and your days off happen to be Saturday and Sunday every single week, you are quiet quitting. To win, you must deliberately bypass the off-ramps of personal comfort and low volatility.

Corgi isn't for everyone—and that’s exactly the point.

[phil chacko @philchacko]

Burn-and-churn is a valid talent strategy, it’s timeless, used in banking and consulting before tech.

But it means you’re looking for twenty-somethings who don’t have better options, to thrash on work that won’t wind up mattering. Maybe worth it if you’re young and need to cut your teeth. Or if you’re a VC getting talent to work for you on the cheap.

If you have options and any amount of experience, avoid.

[phil chacko @philchacko]

@TurnerNovak Then why is a16z HQ in D? 🤔

[phil chacko @philchacko]

@creatine_cycle Friends say D is a great place to do magical walks in an enhanced state of mind...