Willis Wee

Founder @techinasia (@ycombinator W15, exited). Dad of 3 girls. Learning, building, investing.

[Anthropic @AnthropicAI]

Our internal data shows Claude is accelerating AI development—a possible path to recursive self-improvement, or AI autonomously building a more capable successor.

It’s happening faster than we thought, and the implications deserve greater attention. https://t.co/OVVPJO7VQx

[Paul Graham @paulg]

I've added a new question to the list I consider during office hours with YC startups. As well as "Can we induce network effects?" and "Would it make sense to go full-stack?" I now ask "Can we make this AI-proof?" Can we ensure this company still exists if AIs do most work?

[Willis Wee @williswee]

@BasedBiohacker really good. thanks @BasedBiohacker

[Willis Wee @williswee]

💯t

"the person who has to torture themselves to get out of bed in the morning to start their work has no chance against the guy who wakes up jumping out of bed excited to attack his work because he enjoys it so much"

[BasedBiohacker @BasedBiohacker]

https://t.co/pjvbSoGFOr

[Jean-Denis Greze 💡 @jgreze]

Today, we’re launching @TownAI: the AI assistant that learns you.

We’re coming out of beta with a $55M Series A led by @ARampell at @a16z, with participation from @KirstenGreen at @forerunnervc and continued support from @firstround, @altcap, and @conviction.

Right now, getting real value from AI means prompting, configuring, building workflows, managing agents.

We think that’s backwards.

The future of AI is a companion that already knows you and how you work. Town connects across your inbox, calendar, Slack, docs, messages, and workflows to understand what you need, then starts doing the work with you.

Drafting. Scheduling. Project tracking. Follow-ups. Context gathering. Multi-step tasks. And it only acts when you say so.

All adapting to your voice, priorities, routines, and relationships over time.

Your Townie is the AI assistant you actually need.

[cat @_catwu]

Excited to share how Anthropic's data team has automated 95% of business analytics queries with Claude. Blog post covers how we approach evals, ablations, and online validation!

[Willis Wee @williswee]

Good read, @DeRonin_ . Inspiring.

[Ronin @DeRonin_]

https://t.co/NwSdR5KHr3

[Bill Gurley @bgurley]

Chinese founders/investors read all they can about leading US founders. Good practice to do the same in reverse. Liang Wenfeng (DeepSeek) is one to watch.

Recent moves:

https://t.co/JBugU9bmb7

Translation of earlier long-form interviews:

https://t.co/a505Z8JzhW

[@levelsio @levelsio]

This is how you do a great startup video

Humble and chill and a real cool backstory

[Willis Wee @williswee]

Before AI: laptop closed.

After AI: laptop slightly open because the agents need emotional support too. Gotta keep them running. ❤️

[Matt Van Horn @mvanhorn]

https://t.co/95lFnAyw0e

[Mike Vernal @mvernal]

https://t.co/n7pVVA3uXu

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

"You need to make yourself a big target for luck, and the way to do that is to be curious. Try lots of things, meet lots of people, read lots of books, ask lots of questions."

— Paul Graham, How to Do Great Work

https://t.co/AyIk5fnKZL

[Teng Yan @tengyanAI]

https://t.co/SiYxdIn6ju

[Willis Wee @williswee]

This is mostly true. Still need to get of building to meet new friends.

[mal @mal_shaik]

the best founders i know dont network

they just help ppl and somehow end up knowing everyone

turns out being useful is the best growth hack

[@levelsio @levelsio]

P.S. this is how actual realistc growth looks like

You see all these ecom bros now on here "within 1 month we hit $1M ARR", @yongfook talks a lot about it

That stuff doesn't exist or it's pumped massively by ads so they paid >$83,000 to get $83,000 in sales and then tweet $1M ARR, so it's $0 profit

And their end game is to sell you a $3000 course how to do the same!

[Willis Wee @williswee]

A founder’s real job is to make high-quality decisions, repeatedly, for years.

[Willis Wee @williswee]

https://t.co/dnqULccnE2

[Guillermo Rauch @rauchg]

Ship the best product. Use lots of AI, some AI, maybe no AI. Just be the best.

[Willis Wee @williswee]

So good. Totally agree, @garrytan. I took 16 years. Maybe too long. 😅

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

Be your self, not someone you were assigned to be!

Bezos won on time horizon, not AWS or 1-Click.

If your bets have to work in 3 years, you compete with everyone. Every smart, funded team is chasing the same 3-year problems. Short horizon, crowded field.

Stretch to 7 and the field collapses. Investors want returns, employees want vesting, founders want proof. Almost nobody can sit in a bet that doesn't pay for most of a decade. The patience is the moat, and it costs you, that's why it works.

But you can't fake a 7-year horizon on a problem you don't actually care about. Pick the users and the problem Moloch assigned you, the safe ones, the fundable ones, and you'll bail the first hard year. Pick the ones that are actually yours and you'll still be there when everyone else has quit.

So the real prerequisite isn't discipline. It's knowing yourself well enough to choose a problem and a set of people you care about that you'll serve them for decades.