Failing to send regular investor updates is interpreted negatively by VCs. They assume either the company is struggling, or the founder is ungrateful and disorganized. Consistent communication, even when brief, maintains trust and keeps investors primed to help.
Services that publicly display a startup's Stripe revenue are great for attracting investors. However, they also create a roadmap for well-funded competitors, such as YC teams looking for a pivot, to identify and replicate promising business models with validated traction.
One host who distrusts LLMs for medical advice today admits he would trust them in five years. This suggests many arguments against AI are temporary, based on current capabilities, and will resolve as the technology matures and user trust grows.
OpenAI is restricting its models from giving tailored legal or medical advice. This isn't about nerfing the AI's capabilities but a strategic legal maneuver to avoid liability and lawsuits alleging the company is practicing licensed professions without credentials.
A founder's request for help in an investor update should be placed at the very end. This tactic, similar to Van Halen's 'no brown M&Ms' clause, serves as a test to see which investors read the update thoroughly and are genuinely engaged enough to offer assistance.
Startups are successfully deploying infrastructure like in-orbit GPUs. However, the space economy remains self-referential, serving other space companies. It needs a major commercial application with Earth-based customers, like asteroid mining, to achieve sustainable growth.
A bigger risk than OpenAI's tech plateauing is its business model being destroyed by competition. If rivals like Google make their LLMs free, OpenAI's high valuation and massive spending become unsustainable as it would be forced to compete on price, not performance.
OpenAI's massive, long-term contracts with key infrastructure players mean its success is deeply intertwined with the market. If OpenAI falters, the ripple effect could crash stocks like NVIDIA, Oracle, and Microsoft, potentially bursting the AI bubble.
The legal profession's core functions—researching case law, drafting contracts, and reviewing documents—are based on a large, structured corpus of text. This makes them ideal use cases for Large Language Models, fueling a massive wave of investment into legal AI companies.
The mind-boggling $1.4T in compute commitments likely isn't fully guaranteed. Such large contracts often include clauses for deferral, extension, or cancellation, giving OpenAI flexibility and making its actual financial risk much lower than public perception suggests.
When questioned about massive compute spending, Sam Altman's retort wasn't a detailed financial defense but a challenge: sell your shares if you don't believe. This is a power move by a confident founder to reframe short-term criticism as a lack of long-term vision.
While the obvious targets for Netflix are Warner's famous IP like Batman, acquiring CNN would be a game-changer. It would provide a proven, global, 24/7 live content stream, accelerating Netflix's strategic shift from on-demand video to a constant live-event platform.