I’m delighted to be investing more in Helion. Helion is by far the most promising approach to fusion I’ve seen.David and Chris are two of the most impressive founders and builders (in the sense... | Continue reading

There is a recent trend in Silicon Valley towards party rounds—in early financing rounds, instead of raising large amounts of money from a few large investors, companies are instead raising small... | Continue reading

I’ve observed thousands of founders and thought a lot about what it takes to make a huge amount of money or to create something important. Usually, people start off wanting the former and end up... | Continue reading

In the early days of my startup, I used to get slightly offended when people would refer to it as a “project”.  “How’s your project going?” seemed like the asker didn't take us seriously, even... | Continue reading

A founder recently asked me how to stop caring what other people think. I didn’t have an answer, and after reflecting on it more, I think it's the wrong question.Almost everyone cares what... | Continue reading

Startup employees often do not get treated very well when it comes to stock compensation.   New ideas float around occasionally, but lawyers are usually averse to trying new things, and investors... | Continue reading

Richard Hamming gave this talk in March of 1986. [1]  It's one of the best talks I've ever read and has long impacted how I think about spending my time.I mentioned it to a number of people this... | Continue reading

I am pretty sure cryptocurrency is here to stay in some form (at least as a store of value, which is the only use case we have seen work at scale so far).  There was possibly a time when... | Continue reading

A lot of people want to replicate YC in some other industry or some other place or with some other strategy. In general, people seem to assume that: 1) although there was some degree of mystery or... | Continue reading

There’s a lot written about what you should do when you raise money, but there hasn’t been as much written about the common mistakes founders make. Here is a list of mistakes I often see:  •... | Continue reading

I spent many years working with founders and now I work with researchers.Although there are always individual exceptions, on average it’s surprising to me how different the best people in these... | Continue reading

Almost every company and non-profit working on COVID-19 that I offered to help asked for support with clinical trials—for companies focusing on developing novel drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics,... | Continue reading

The most common question prospective startup founders ask is how to get ideas for startups. The second most common question is if you have any ideas for their startup.But giving founders an idea... | Continue reading

Experts on the COVID-19 pandemic seem to think there are three ways out—that is, for life, health, and the economy to return roughly to normal. Either we get a vaccine good enough that R0 for the... | Continue reading

Most of the time, we worry far too much about tail risk.We worry about terrorist attacks and necrotizing fasciitis, but not much about heart disease or car crashes.  But in 2011, 17 US citizens... | Continue reading

I’m trying to fund startups/projects helping with COVID-19, because it’s basically the one thing I know how to do that can help.  I think we will soon have enough testing capacity, so now I’d like... | Continue reading

Although I still hope things will go differently, the experts I’ve spoken to think we are likely to face a global tragedy—hundreds of thousands of deaths from Covid-19.I hope that society views... | Continue reading

The most counterintuitive secret about startups is that it’s often easier to succeed with a hard startup than an easy one.  A hard startup requires a lot more money, time, coordination, or... | Continue reading

There is a lot of advice about how to be a good startup founder.  But there isn’t very much about how to be a good startup investor.Before going any further, I should point out that this is a... | Continue reading

I’m tired of reading about investors and journalists claiming there’s a bubble in tech.  I understand that it’s fun to do and easy press, but it’s boring reading.  I also understand that it might... | Continue reading

Commentators are looking hard for what’s wrong with startups in Silicon Valley.  First they talked about valuations being too high.  Then they talked about valuations not really meaning anything. ... | Continue reading

A popular topic in Silicon Valley is talking about what year humans and machines will merge (or, if not, what year humans will get surpassed by rapidly improving AI or a genetically enhanced... | Continue reading

I turned 30 last week and a friend asked me if I'd figured out any life advice in the past decade worth passing on.  I'm somewhat hesitant to publish this because I think these lists usually seem... | Continue reading

I’ve observed thousands of founders and thought a lot about what it takes to make a huge amount of money or to create something important. Usually, people start off wanting the former and end up... | Continue reading

I frequently get asked by non-technical solo founders if I know any potential hacker cofounders they should talk to.  These people give a passionate pitch for the idea and a long list of all the... | Continue reading

Richard Hamming gave this talk in March of 1986. [1]  It's one of the best talks I've ever read and has long impacted how I think about spending my time.I mentioned it to a number of people this... | Continue reading

I’m tired of reading about investors and journalists claiming there’s a bubble in tech.  I understand that it’s fun to do and easy press, but it’s boring reading.  I also understand that it might... | Continue reading

Today, OpenAI released a new result.  We used PPO (Proximal Policy Optimization), a general reinforcement learning algorithm invented by OpenAI, to train a team of 5 agents to play Dota and beat... | Continue reading

I turned 30 last week and a friend asked me if I'd figured out any life advice in the past decade worth passing on.  I'm somewhat hesitant to publish this because I think these lists usually seem... | Continue reading

I am pretty sure cryptocurrency is here to stay in some form (at least as a store of value, which is the only use case we have seen work at scale so far).  There was possibly a time when... | Continue reading