Turner Novak interviews Bilal Zuberi, who left Lux Capital to start Red Glass Ventures focused on AI touching the physical world. They cover hardware challenges, founder selection, and fund economics.
A post by KippBodnar.eth lays out an eight-step plan for using Grok Bot to search X for people discussing a product's use case, enrich their contact details and score them against past customers. It quotes an announcement that Grok Bot can now search, read and monitor X.
Grok Bot @botx.comX. It’s what’s happeningFrom breaking news and entertainment to sports and politics, get the full story with all the live commentary.Grok Bot can now search, read, and monitor X.
Nikhil Pahwa congratulates Nous Research on a reported $90 million raise at a $1.5 billion valuation after its open-source Hermes agent was downloaded 22.7 million times, with about $36 million in annualized revenue by mid-September.
Choblin @choblin29🚨BREAKING: Nous Research has raised $90 million at a $1.5 billion valuation after its open-source Hermes agent exploded in usage.
Hermes has been downloaded 22.7 million times since February.
Nous was at roughly $36 million in annualized revenue by mid-September. It expects to pass $100 million later this year.
Vladimir Bayandin promotes Explee, an AI outreach agent that identifies ideal customers from a website link, writes personalized emails, books calls and handles follow-ups. He offers a $30 free trial.
Olivia Moore shares an a16z map identifying search, creative tools and productivity as areas where early consumer AI winners are emerging, while social, marketplaces, travel, finance and other categories remain open.
Orkut Buyukkokten invites people to add their name at orkut.com and share supporter cards, promising a big change on October 8. The linked page is in Portuguese and English and frames the relaunch around friendship and community.
Ankit Shukla discusses the emerging Product Builder role, citing data that over 30% of PM roles now ask for AI skills and outlining a POWER framework for finding AI problems worth solving. The post is largely a podcast promotion with a substantive guide attached.
“The number one skill those postings asked for was judgment: knowing which problems deserve AI.”— Aakash Gupta
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Starter Story features Max, who says he built one of the fastest-growing lifting apps in six months with minimal coding background. The post is a video clip of his account.
Tejeshwi Sharma recounts how a young VP backed a company when its idea was unproven, and it later grew to $1 billion in revenue. A quoted post from an investor praises the founders of an AI data company.
Prateek Sharma @2SharmaPI'm an investor in this co and know the founders for over a decade now. It's evident to me that this co will re-define the AI data category with excellence in research, engineering and impeccable execution. Stay tuned. twitter.com/gokulr/status/2107851356019290569
Ksenia Moskalenko reports that the NSF America's Seed Fund has reopened after reauthorization, offering non-dilutive funding up to $1.55M across three tracks. The post lists eligibility rules, a 3-page pitch step, and a November 4 full-proposal deadline.
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Noah Kagan says he made a free Wispr Flow alternative for Apple silicon Macs, offering unlimited use the first week then 2,000 words weekly, or $20 once for unlimited. He plans to share pricing experiment results in 30 days.
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Claude announces that its Startups program is expanding, offering members a year of Claude Team, API credits, partner tool offers and office hours with Anthropic's Applied AI team. The announcement includes a video.
Adrià Martinez describes the Claude Startups program, which offers a year of Claude Team, API credits, priority rate limits and tool discounts, and gives step-by-step application tips such as using a company email.
Claude @claudeaiThe Claude Startups program is expanding to more founders.
Members can get a year of Claude Team, API credits, special offers on the tools a startup runs on, and office hours with Anthropic’s Applied AI team.
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Developer kyzo says the new product One, a unified inbox and voice interface for talking with AI agents, reached $2 million in annual recurring revenue within five hours. The post links to a promotional video.
kyzo @ky__zomeet One, the new way for talking with your agents
• see questions from your agents in one inbox
• talk to those agents with your voice
• reply from your iPhone, even to cloud ones
most joyous product I've built so far.
enjoy!!!
Tibo announces a free, open-source AI skill that turns Nikita Bier's consumer app growth framework into a tool for analyzing an app and recommending fixes, metric checks and a yes/no test. The skill is linked at tmaker.io and promoted in an upcoming newsletter.
Tibo @tibo_makerthis is how Nikita Bier builds viral apps
Polymarket reports that AI startup BioinvestGPT correctly predicted five of six major drug trial outcomes before results were announced. The post offers no methodology or independent verification.
Pieter Levels criticizes Airbnb's review policy after the company stated that hosts cannot delete reviews, while hundreds of guests report removed reviews. He argues that removing reviews on host request undermines trust in the platform's ratings.
Airbnb Help @AirbnbHelpWe remove reviews that violate our policies, and hosts can't delete them. Only guests who actually booked the stay can leave one.
Ratings on Airbnb skew high partly because we remove listings that fall short of guest expectations. twitter.com/levelsio/status/2107055382459732293
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Kyzo introduces One, a product that gathers agent questions in a single inbox, lets users talk to agents by voice and supports replies from an iPhone, including to cloud agents. The post is a product announcement video.
Mark Suster congratulates Jiake Liu on the launch of Outer Space, which raised $8 million in pre-seed funding led by Upfront Ventures and builds outdoor living spaces that generate and store solar energy.
Jiake Liu @jiakeliuToday we’re launching @outerspacesco with $8M in pre-seed funding led by @upfrontvc.
The future of residential energy might not be on your roof. It might be in your backyard.
We’re building beautiful outdoor spaces that generate solar power and store energy for your home.
No roof modifications. No batteries taking up garage space.
Just more living space that also powers your home.
We think this could become an entirely new category of residential energy.
Checkout what we’re building in this video and thread below.
Shoutout to @msuster @kevinyzhang at @upfrontvc, @willhsu at @mucker, @ge…
Investor Sheel Mohnot recommends trying Hark Pro despite personal assistant fatigue, citing strong UX and non-intrusive proactive notifications. He quotes Brett Adcock's announcement that Hark Pro is live on web, iOS and Android.
Brett Adcock @adcock_brett
Vijay Shekhar Sharma compares the Oki Home personal AI computer to the Sun Ultra of the AI era. The quoted announcement says the device keeps user data local and takes reservations for a first batch shipping mid-December.
Luofei @Luofei_ChenSay hello to Oki Home, your Personal AI Computer.
We're building a future of limitless, personalized intelligence for every consumer, while keeping all your data in your hands.
Reserve our first batch, shipping mid-december! okihome.ai
Vineeta Agarwala announces a16z led General Medicine's $120M Series B. The company unifies patient history, clinical guidance, transparent pricing and access to care, including its own medical group and a marketplace of external clinicians.
“General Medicine is built on the belief that facilitating access to care is a core part of delivering it.”— Vineeta Agarwala
Valon announced a Series D round that doubled its valuation to $2.3 billion, backed by Ribbit Capital and a16z. Angela Strange says Valon now runs about one in six U.S. mortgages on its ValonOS platform.
Linda Du @xlindaduSo excited to announce that @Valon has raised a Series D, doubling our valuation to $2.3B 📷
I’m incredibly proud of our team and grateful to our customers and partners. Huge thank you to @RibbitCapital @a16z and everyone who continue to support us!
Aakash Gupta analyzes the Startup Qatar Investment Program, backed by Qatar Development Bank, which offers equity checks up to $5.5M with mandatory relocation, comparing it to Singapore's 1960s incentive playbook and noting retention as the open challenge. He quotes Suraj Sharma's summary of the two tracks and perks.
Suraj Sharma @suraj_sharma14Up to $5.5M to move your startup to Qatar.
Just an MVP gets you in the door.
The Startup Qatar Investment Program (backed by QDB) funds tech startups to launch or expand in Qatar.
Two tracks:
START: up to $1.1M if you have a proof of concept or MVP
GROW: up to $5.5M if you're already established and expanding
What else you get:
- Entrepreneur visa + flexible work visa
- Registration and license fees waived
- Subsidized housing
- Subsidized co-working space
- Access to R&D and innovation grants
- Mentoring, training + help hiring talent and interns
- Your product showcased at exhibitions
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