Phil Santoro

Co-Founder of @wilburlabs, we turn bold ideas into market-leading companies

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

Joblist is joining BOLD, the company behind Monster, CareerBuilder, FlexJobs, and MyPerfectResume.

We launched @joblist_com out of @wilburlabs in 2019 because we thought job search was broken: every big platform was built for employers, not people actually looking for work. We set out to build the opposite, putting the job seeker first.

Then the pandemic hit, and the problem we set out to solve became even more important. The U.S. lost more than 22 million jobs in two months. We pulled the launch forward by six months to get it out when it could actually help. What followed was one of the fastest expansions in Wilbur Labs' history, with launches in Canada, the UK, and Australia in the months that followed.

It turned out that building for job seekers first didn't just help candidates, it helped employers too. When the team launched Joblist Employer during the Great Resignation, companies got higher-intent applicants because the matching was actually working. Putting the underserved customer first turned out to be better for everyone.

Seven years, four countries, and 100+ million job seekers later, Joblist is entering its next chapter with a partner that shares the same mission.

Huge congratulations to Skylar, Bao, and the entire Joblist team on this milestone.

Read the full story here → https://t.co/AlONRaJyAs

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

Smart homes have gone too far

[Quinn Nelson @SnazzyLabs]

I’m just updating the firmware on my kitchen knife…

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

AI is rewriting how startups are built, and the leading causes of failure have shifted with it.

Our third @wilburlabs study on why startups fail is out today. We've been researching this topic for over a decade, and this year we engaged @WakefieldStats to survey 200 U.S. tech founders. Some of the results are striking.

A few worth sharing:
• In our 2023 survey, founders most often blamed running out of money (38%). This year it dropped to 25%, with technology and product issues (44%) taking the lead — likely because AI has made it faster and cheaper to build and test.

• 50% now name technological disruption, including AI, as the top threat to their company.

• 81% pivoted from their original idea; 42% wish they had pivoted sooner.

• 54% said the biggest lesson from failure was the need to better understand product-market fit — still the biggest reason companies don't make it.

• 90% have experienced stress or burnout severe enough to consider quitting. 87% said building a company was lonelier than they expected.

• Despite all of that, 81% of founders who failed remain open to starting another company. Not one said failure would stop them.

Most startups don't survive. But failure is rarely random — the patterns repeat, the lessons compound, and the founders who learn to spot them can improve their odds.

Full study: https://t.co/DEcV0YW5uj

[Vogo @vogo_com]

VacationRenter is rebranding. Please meet Vogo!

Vogo is universal by design. Built for every traveler, everywhere, across languages and currencies worldwide.

Read the full story → https://t.co/82D0Z4TXbG

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

@pitdesi My view is to get one now but only lease for the next few years. It's true that Tesla will always have new hardware coming out but now especially as they race for unsupervised there's lots of hardware upgrades happening.

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

@bscholl I like your work Blake, but this is poor taste.

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

Source: https://t.co/pIfZx4T9BB

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

Bullish on both Tesla and Waymo – they’ll both thrive, are leagues ahead of everyone else, and the outcome of this rivalry will be lives saved and the largest productivity gain in history.

That said, after hundreds of trips in FSD and Waymo, Tesla’s FSD is clearly ahead. Most people miss this: Waymo may have the DMV “unsupervised” distinction, but it’s years away from the truly unsupervised level FSD is already at: no geofencing, no phoning home to humans to solve a road problem, no need for internet connectivity, etc.

Case in point: "AUSTIN (KXAN) — When a Waymo autonomous vehicle in Austin contacted a remote assistance agent in Michigan — a human — to ask if the school bus in the next lane over was signaling for drivers to stop, the agent wrongly replied “no,” according to a newly-released report from the National Transportation Safety Board.

The Waymo system went on to illegally pass an Austin Independent School District bus for the 24th time that school year. Video from the Jan. 12 incident shows the bus was displaying red strobing lights at the time and had two stop signs sticking out."

[Whole Mars Catalog @wholemars]

A lot of people are focused on when Tesla will catch up to Waymo, which is fair given that Waymo has thousands of driverless cars and Tesla only has a handful.

But not enough people ask “When will Waymo catch up to Tesla?”

1. When will Waymo be able to take me on a coast to coast drive?
2. When will I be able to buy a Waymo?
3. When will Waymo cross 8 million cars that can run their software?
4. When will Waymo be able to work with no geofencing restrictions?

My contrarian take is that it’s a lot easier for Tesla to catch Waymo than for Waymo to catch up to Tesla.

[David Kolodny @david_kolodny]

Today marks 10 years since @philsantoro and I started @wilburlabs.

When we traded our Google desks for Phil’s couch in 2016, “startup studio” was barely a term anyone used. There was no playbook. We’ve come a long way since.

I spent a lot of time reflecting on the milestone and wrote a post on how we got started, how the studio model has evolved, and some of the surprises we’ve seen along the way. I also shared my thoughts on what's next for studios more broadly and why I believe the Jevons paradox of studios is upon us – with both more slop and new highs ahead in the next decade.

I couldn’t be more grateful to Phil, the best co-founder I could have asked for, our world-class studio team, and everyone across each of our portfolio companies. None of this exists without them.

Looking forward to all ahead, and eventually writing the 50 year look-back when we get there

https://t.co/jfLEp4pGop

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

@adamshurwitz @wilburlabs @david_kolodny Thanks Adam!

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

To celebrate 10 years of @wilburlabs, I cut out a piece of our retired "founding couch" and turned it into a @david_kolodny Rookie Card—complete with an authentic "Founding Couch Patch."

10 years ago today, David and I traded our Google desks for long days working from my living room couch, fueled by the belief that we could turn the "art" of company building into a repeatable science.

A huge thank you to David, our studio team, and everyone across our portfolio who helped us build something much bigger than a living room project.

David shared some deeper reflections today on a decade of building, the evolution of startup studios, and what comes next for Wilbur Labs (hint: I’m even more excited about the next 10 years of building): https://t.co/XripNeUxYJ

Here’s to the next 10 years.

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

@AnilKody @wilburlabs @david_kolodny Thanks Anil!

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

@david_kolodny @wilburlabs @roomandboard +1

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

Flying this Cessna 172 with a keyboard and mouse in 1997 was infinitely more difficult than flying a real one.

[Retro Tech Dreams @RetroTechDreams]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 (1997)

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

phpBB PTSD caused by the security exploits is real. Managing a massive host while dodging hacks every other day on our forums aged me two decades.

Still, killer software for its time.

[Autism Capital 🧩 @AutismCapital]

Remember phpBB?

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

Had a blast going down memory lane with @GrantFreking on the @LindnerCollege Bearcats Mean Business podcast!

We dug into the reality of being a student entrepreneur (it’s not as cool as Shark Tank) and the "unglamorous" side of building a company.

We covered a lot of ground in 30 minutes—from the chaos of running a startup out of my parents' basement in high school and turning a second dorm room into my office, to why I believe it's critical to support young entrepreneurs early in their journey. (And yes, we also talk about how I ended up with a Guinness World Record for eating a jelly donut in 11 seconds 🍩).

[Lindner College of Business @LindnerCollege]

🎙️On Bearcats Mean Business, Lindner alum Phil Santoro shares his journey from starting a company at 13 to scaling businesses at Google and founding Wilbur Labs. A smart, candid listen for students and professionals thinking about entrepreneurship. 🚀

https://t.co/bAd8zRZxUL

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

@LindnerCollege Thank you for having me @GrantFreking!

[Lindner College of Business @LindnerCollege]

🎙️On Bearcats Mean Business, Lindner alum Phil Santoro shares his journey from starting a company at 13 to scaling businesses at Google and founding Wilbur Labs. A smart, candid listen for students and professionals thinking about entrepreneurship. 🚀

https://t.co/bAd8zRZxUL

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

For the @digg users: I've set up /Entrepreneur and gotten a great group of founders to join and commit to staying active.

If any old or new friends want to join please do and pass on any other suggestions you have as we build this great community.

[Phil Santoro @philsantoro]

@SophieBae711 @JDVance @SecKennedy indeed it does, and it's delicious.