Stan Lee (founder)

founder in sf | dropped out of yc | dropped out of stanford | building a $1 trillion startup in sf (i'm in sf btw)

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

just spoke to a young founder

he's 6 years old

dropped out of 1st grade

moved across the country to build

SF is insane bro

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

@shahriarr_here he can always just start his own company and get it to $10m ARR

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

met a senior engineer who got laid off from Meta

used to make $750k a year

plus every perk imaginable

now he can't afford his $9k/mo condo payment

frantically trying to find a new

he's interviewing to be CTO of every startup in the bay area

all he can get is $80k salary, 0.1% equity, and an air mattress on the floor of the founder's living room

he's not sure if his wife and two kids will be okay living like that

welcome to the tech job market in 2026

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

just met a startup founder

he's 14 and just moved to sf to build an agentic AI tool

raised a $9 million seed round his first week here

his startup's biggest challenge?

that his mommy finds out where he is, makes him come home, and grounds him for 3 months

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

@WurtDotApp he invested most of it into angel list syndicates

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

they reinvented phone operators from first principles

[Karen X. Cheng @karenxcheng]

i hooked up a rotary phone from the 1920s to an AI agent, that replies on a mechanical display

it’s like a dumbphone without distracting notifications

here’s how i built this w/ @cursor_ai

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

elon musk is 54 years old and giving out startup advice

bro, if i wanted to hear from an unc i'd call my great-grandpa

i want to learn from guys who are 21 and scaling businesses right now

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

met a founder

started an AI-first company

has zero employees

$10 million ARR

works 5 seconds per day

incredible

The best part?

I just made this guy up

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

@Tristanrhee3 27? it's so over bro, I'm sorry

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

caught up with a friend from high school

said they're dropping out of college to work on a startup

nice, i said

which area? prediction markets, sports betting, AI deep fakes?

none of those

he wants to build something in the "medical space" to "help" people with diseases

sorry bro, VCs don't care about that anymore

I cut the lunch short and went back to building my gambling social media AI app

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

got into YC when I was 8

dropped out of Stanford when I was 9

built my first startup when I was 10

got acquired when I was 11

if you're 35+ and still just starting out, it's way too late for you

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

@ryanbrewer if you're over 21 yrs old then you are unc status and just don't get it anymore

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

why doesn't this booth have a curtain?

i'd like to get a bit more intimate with AI garry tan

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

i was 19 when i scaled my company to 9 employees sleeping in my apartment with $0 mrr

it's way too late for you

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

our company is only 14 days old

we just hit our 14th consecutive day of $0 mrr

most founders can only dream about his kind of consistency

we don't even know what our product does but we're still years ahead of the competition

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

@samlambert ask him if he already has a homeless shelter picked out

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

@HornOfTheRhino7 come over to my place now

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

my startup is growing fast

we need to hire the best

cracked engineer i just met checks all the boxes:

- 21 years old (we don't hire 35 or older)
- is fine to live in my apartment (has to sleep in laundry room)
- willing to be paid with 0.1% equity (will be worth billions)
- only needs $200 a month for food

welcome to the team

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

@_chenglou why are they even allowing 21+? don't want people who aren't up to date on tech trends

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

met a successful founder

exited for billions

asked him for his keys to success

he told me he was only successful bc he:

- dropped out of stanford
- dropped out of yc
- dropped out of his family to focus on building

cracked