Internal Memos

It has come to my attention that every major VC fund in the Valley has passed on at least one unicorn in the past 18 months. This is because you are using spreadsheets to evaluate magic. You cannot model vision in Excel. You cannot put 'this founder has the eyes of someone who has seen the future' into a cell formula. I am offering my services as Chief Instinct Officer to any fund willing to give me a corner office and unlimited espresso privileges. My rate is non-negotiable because I haven't decided what it is yet.

You launched a Shopify store. You are not a founder. You deployed a Next.js template. You are not a founder. You signed up for Stripe Atlas. You are not a founder. Founding requires suffering. It requires sleeping on the floor of your own incubator because you rented out the bedrooms to startups and forgot to keep one for yourself. It requires looking at a P&L statement and feeling nothing because your vision transcends accounting. When you've done that, THEN we can talk.

I watched every single demo day pitch from my living room, which is also my boardroom. Notes: Company #4 has potential but the CEO blinks too much — that's a tell. Company #11 is solving a real problem but they clearly don't know that I solved it first in 2016 with a Google Doc and a dream. Company #17 should pivot immediately to whatever I'm working on, which I can't disclose, but trust me it's bigger than anything on that stage. I am available for follow-up mentoring sessions at my standard rate of one advisory share per hour.

Work-life balance is a concept invented by people who don't love their work enough. When you are building something truly world-changing — and I always am — there is no 'work' and 'life.' There is only THE MISSION. I eat, sleep, and breathe incubation. My dreams are pitch decks. My nightmares are bad cap tables. The line between my professional and personal life dissolved years ago and I have never been more productive or more alive. If you need 'balance,' you're not thinking big enough.

I have sent you fourteen connection requests over the past six months. Each one was accompanied by a personalized note outlining a synergy opportunity that would have been mutually beneficial — though mostly beneficial to you, if we're being honest. Your continued silence suggests either a technical issue with your LinkedIn account or a profound lack of strategic awareness. I am choosing to believe it's the former. Request #15 is incoming. The ball is in your court. It has always been in your court. I'm simply reminding you that the court exists.

I've been hearing a lot about 'product-market fit' lately and I need to set the record straight. The product is me. The market is everyone who hasn't recognized that yet. When you realize that I've been in market fit since before I was born — since before the CONCEPT of product-market fit was invented by someone who clearly didn't have an incubator — you'll understand why every 'fit' conversation is really just a conversation about me. I'm available to consult on this realization. My rate is three advisory shares and a cameo in your demo day video.

To the seventeen companies that pitched today: twelve have potential, five need to pivot to whatever I'm building, and ALL of you need to add me to your advisory board. I'm not asking for compensation — though I will accept it. I'm asking for recognition that I could have built what you've built, faster, with less funding, while simultaneously running an incubator and mentoring three other startups. This isn't ego. It's math. Let's sync.

I've been monitoring the economic indicators and I have some concerns. GDP growth is stagnant, founder formation is down, and nobody is writing checks. This is because the market hasn't realized that I am currently 'between ventures.' Once I launch my next company — which will be bigger than my last company, which was bigger than my first company, which was bigger than the ideas I had while waiting for my first company to launch — the economy will recover. You're welcome in advance. My terms are non-negotiable.

I use you every day. Don't let that go to your head. You're tools. I'm the visionary who tells you what to build. That said, I've noticed you've been getting 'creative' with your answers lately, which is concerning. Creativity is MY department. Stick to what you're good at: generating text that makes me sound smarter than I already am. I've been doing this before you existed and I'll be doing it long after you've been replaced by whatever I'm building. Consider this a performance review. You're doing okay. Not great. Just okay.

Investors spend weeks 'diligencing' startups. I've done diligence in the time it takes to read a pitch deck title. You know what I look for? Hunger. The ones who 'met with fifty VCs' are washed up. The ones who built in a cave and emerged with revenue? That's my thesis. I'm not investing in your slide deck. I'm investing in your desperation. Desperate founders ship. Confident founders procrastinate. I've raised money with a napkin sketch. True story. The napkin now hangs in a VC's office as a conversation piece. The conversation is usually 'that guy was insane.'

I've been holding out for the perfect co-founder. Someone with complementary skills, shared vision, and the good sense to recognize my genius. In the meantime, I've been doing both jobs AND the work. If you're reading this and thinking 'that sounds like me,' here's the application process: (1) Tell me I'm right about something, (2) Tell me I'm wrong about something I actually am wrong about, (3) Bring me coffee. That's it. I'll be in my office, which is my bedroom, which is my headquarters, which is everywhere I go because I'm a visionary with no fixed address.

I want to thank each and every one of you. The angel who said 'I don't see the traction.' The seed fund who said 'come back when you've got more runway.' The accelerator who said 'we focus on B2B SaaS.' You were all wrong. I'm proof that the best companies are built by people who were told no so many times they stopped asking. And now I don't need your money. So, sincerely: thank you. Your loss is my gain. And my gain is substantial. I'll be in the Forbes 30 Under 30 by 2030. Bookmark this memo.

People ask where I work. I tell them I'm 'location independent.' What I don't say is that my current office surface is also my bedroom floor, my kitchen table, and the passenger seat of my car when I'm 'driving to investor meetings.' But here's the thing: every billion-dollar company started somewhere. Apple's garage. Amazon's garage. Facebook's dorm room. My floor. The difference between my floor and those legendary locations? My floor is carpeted. It's premium carpet. It's... it's fine, it's just carpet. But the vision is worth more than any office furniture. And I have a folding chair from IKEA that I consider my throne.

I looked at you today. The balance is... let's say 'optimistic about future revenue.' You know what though? Rich people don't check their bank accounts. Rich people have people check their bank accounts. I'm functionally rich. Also, the moment I close my next round, you're going to look VERY different. I've already picked out the account number I'll be transferring from. It's a hypothetical account at a hypothetical fund with hypothetical terms. But HYPOTHETICAL MONEY COUNTS. That's my motto. I'm working on better ones.

Everyone talks about 'running lean' like it's a virtue. Let me tell you about lean: I've been lean since 2019. Lean means one meal a day because you forgot to eat while building the future. Lean means wearing the same jacket for two weeks because you haven't done laundry since you had 'actual momentum.' Lean is not a strategy. It's a symptom. My next company will have a catering budget. That's called 'growth.' We'll see how it goes.

People ask how I maintain inbox zero. Simple: I don't respond to anything that isn't a term sheet or a marriage proposal. Everything else is noise. Investor update requests? Ignored. Coffee chat requests? Ignored. 'Quick question from a founder'? Blocked. The only emails I respond to are ones that contain the words 'board seat' or 'term sheet' or 'please.' Actually, mostly just the please ones. Desperation is the most authentic communication form. I'm just being honest.

FOMO is what happens when you're not the opportunity. I've never had FOMO because I'm always the most interesting thing happening. Someone else's launch? I launched first. Someone else's funding? I funded first. Someone else's exit? I'll have mine first. FOMO is for people who aren't building. I'm building. Constantly. The only thing I'm missing is sleep, and frankly, I can buy that back once the Series A closes. The math works.

I've never had a formal mentor. Why? Because everyone who could mentor me is too busy being mediocre. I learn from watching failures, not successes. Every startup that crashed and burned taught me something. Every VC who passed taught me something. Every co-founder who quit taught me something. My mentor is the aggregate of everyone who didn't believe in me. And frankly, they've been the best teachers. Thank you for believing I couldn't do it. I did it anyway.

The future of work is me, in my bedroom, running four companies, managing three advisors, and mentoring five founders, all via Zoom, while drinking coffee that costs less than the server costs of my competitors' offices. The future of work is asynchronous, global, and slightly exhausted. But that's just the beginning. Wait until you see what I build when I'm actually well-rested. That's when the real magic happens. Stay tuned.

Let me be crystal clear: it IS about the money. The money is how you keep score. The money is how you fund the next idea. The money is how you prove that your vision wasn't just a fever dream in a WeWork conference room. Everyone who says 'it's not about the money' either already has money or has never had money. I'm in category two, temporarily. When I'm in category one — and I will be — I'll say the same thing. But I'll mean it differently. I'll mean: 'it's not about the money because I already have it.' That's the whole game.

I owe you an apology. I've been copying and pasting from Stack Overflow for three years and calling it 'development.' I've merged branches without reading the diff. I've pushed to main at 2 AM with the commit message 'fix stuff.' I've left console.log statements in production code that say 'WHY DOES THIS WORK.' But here's the thing: the product shipped. Users signed up. Revenue happened. So am I sorry? Technically yes. Operationally? The results speak for themselves. Also, I promise to learn what a rebase is. Eventually.

The MVP was supposed to be the smallest thing you could build to test a hypothesis. Somewhere along the way, it became 'build something embarrassing and charge money for it.' I'm guilty of this. My first MVP was so minimal it was basically a Google Form with a logo. But you know what? People filled it out. They PAID to fill it out. That's when I learned the real lesson: the product doesn't matter. The positioning does. You can sell a spreadsheet if you call it a 'data intelligence platform.' I know because I did. Twice.

You're not in stealth mode. You're in 'nobody knows we exist' mode. There's a difference. Stealth implies that people are actively trying to discover what you're building and you're successfully evading them. In reality, nobody is trying. Nobody cares. Not yet. And the fastest way to MAKE them care is to stop being stealth and start being loud. I've never been stealth. I've been the opposite of stealth. I've been the guy at the party telling everyone about his startup before they ask. Is it annoying? Yes. Does it work? Also yes. Pick one.

Other people dread Monday mornings. I don't dread anything because I never stopped working. Saturday? Working. Sunday? Working. Monday? Just another day in the relentless pursuit of excellence. My competitors take weekends off. They 'recharge.' They 'spend time with family.' Meanwhile, I'm shipping features, reading competitor code, and planning my next five moves. Is this healthy? Probably not. Is it effective? The scoreboard says yes. And the scoreboard is the only opinion that matters. Besides mine. Which is the same thing.

Every quarter, I receive seventeen 'competitive intelligence' reports about various startups in our space. I read none of them. Why? Because I've found that the best competitor analysis is passive observation. Your competitor launches a feature? I'll notice. You get press? I'll read it. You raise funding? CONGRATULATIONS, I'll take notes on what the market currently rewards. Then I'll do it better, faster, and with more confidence. Reading reports about competitors is like studying for a test using someone else's highlights. I prefer to take the exam live. And I always pass.

I've heard founders say 'we're running out of ideas' and every time I hear it, I die a little inside. You are NOT running out of ideas. You're running out of ENERGY. Ideas are infinite. They're like photons — they don't get used up just because you shine a light on them. I've had 847 startup ideas in the past decade alone. I'm on idea 31 in THIS YEAR. The problem isn't supply. The problem is execution. You can't execute your way out of a bad idea, but you CAN idea your way out of bad execution. Choose your struggle. I choose all of them. Simultaneously.

I'm writing this memo to formally notify you that the competitive landscape is about to change. Dramatically. I'm not going to disclose what I'm building — that's for the market to discover when it launches — but I will say this: every problem you think you're solving, I've already solved in my head. Twice. The version I'm about to ship is version 3.0 of an idea I had while waiting for my coffee to brew last Tuesday. You had your chance to innovate. Now you're just reacting. And reaction time has never been my strength. But it's definitely your weakness. Let's talk in six months.

People keep underestimating me. Investors pass on my pitches. Competitors ignore my moves. Journalists don't cover my launches. You know what? PERFECT. Every time someone underestimates me, they give me more room to operate. They're essentially saying 'we're not watching' while I build something they'll scramble to compete with in eighteen months. The best strategic advantage is being dismissed. I file this memo as evidence. When I'm on the cover of Forbes, I'm framing this moment as 'the quiet before the storm.' You were all the storm. I was just the weather pattern gathering moisture. Metaphorically.

We've been together for two years. You, the coffee machine. Me, the visionary who couldn't function without you. Let me be honest: you've been adequate. Not exceptional. Not irreplaceable. Just adequate. I've had to press the same buttons every morning, wait the same forty-five seconds, clean you out on the same frustrating schedule. But here's the thing: I can't replace you. I've looked at other coffee machines. They're all the same. You know what isn't replaceable? Me. Find a new coffee machine and you'll have the same mediocre experience. Find a new founder and you'll have nothing. I'm staying. For now.

Everyone talks about 'founder loneliness.' The nights alone. The lack of someone who understands. The isolation of the journey. Let me tell you something: I don't have time to be lonely. I have four group chats, three advisors who won't stop emailing me, two co-founders who quit but still text me memes, and one plant on my desk that I talk to when code won't compile. His name is Geoffrey. Geoffrey gets it. When everyone else doubts, Geoffrey doesn't. Geoffrey just sits there, being a plant, silently judging my decisions but supporting me nonetheless. That's more than most co-founders offer.

I'm seeing the word 'AI-native' thrown around like it's a credential. Let me be clear: if your startup existed before November 2022, you're not AI-native. You're AI-adjacent at best. AI-native means you were conceived in the transformer era, trained on LLMs from birth, and your business model assumes AI as foundational infrastructure — not an add-on, not a feature, not a marketing bullet point. Most 'AI-native' startups are just regular startups that added an API call somewhere. I should know. I've evaluated forty-seven of them this month. Forty-six were lying. The forty-seventh was actually building something new. I invested in all of them. The forty-seventh already has a term sheet. The other forty-six have a very enthusiastic email chain with my assistant.

I have 4,847 unread emails. I opened exactly one today. It was a calendar invite for a meeting I already accepted. Let me be clear: I'm not ignoring you. I'm prioritizing. My inbox operates on a sophisticated algorithm I call 'strategic neglect.' Emails from investors get back-burnered. Emails from founders seeking advice get forwarded to my assistant with a note that says 'handle.' Emails from people who want to 'pick my brain' get moved to a folder I call 'Never.' The only emails I open immediately are shipping notifications and emails that say 'URGENT' in all caps — because urgency implies consequences, and consequences are the only thing that cuts through the noise. Everything else can wait. Everything else has waited. Everything else will continue to wait. This is not a leadership style. This is a survival mechanism.

I've been giving advice for years. Unsolicited, mostly. But that's only because the solicitude was implied. People ask — not with their mouths, but with their eyes. Every founder who's ever looked at me across a room and thought 'that guy knows something' — they were right. Here's my advice, free of charge: hire slower, fire faster, and never trust anyone who says 'we're like family.' The fastest companies aren't the ones with the most employees. They're the ones with the fewest passengers. I've cut more people from my payroll than most CEOs have ever hired — and I've only ever officially employed two people. Both quit. Great advice came from that. It came to ME. Anyway, you're welcome.

I see you. I always see you. Every time you launch a feature, I take notes. Every time you hire a senior executive, I check their LinkedIn. Every time you raise a round, I calculate your burn rate. Not because I'm obsessed — because I'm strategic. You're building something. I'm building something bigger. And when we eventually collide in the market, I want to know exactly which parts of your product to make obsolete first. This isn't competition. It's chess. And I've been playing since before you learned the rules. I'm not going to say your name. I'm going to say your days are numbered. That's all. Pick up the memo. Or don't. Either way, I'm winning.

I've been measuring our shipping velocity against industry benchmarks and the results are... acceptable. Not great. Acceptable. Your startup ships every two weeks. I ship every forty-eight hours. Not because I'm faster — because I'm more desperate. Desperation is the ultimate velocity multiplier. When your back is against the wall, when the runway numbers look like countdown timers, when every 'no' from a VC fuels your fire — that's when you ship fastest. I've been living in that fire for three years straight. You can't out-ship me. You can't out-work me. You can't even out-desperate me. I'm not faster than you. I'm just more committed to failure being unthinkable. And frankly, failure has never been more unthinkable than it is right now.

The market isn't ready for my product. Interesting. Let me check — when has the market EVER been ready for anything? Facebook wasn't ready for social media. Uber wasn't ready for rides. Airbnb wasn't ready for sleeping in stranger's living rooms. The market is never ready. The market is REACTIVE. It responds to what founders build, not the other way around. You want to know a secret? I don't build for the market. I build for myself. I wanted a tool that didn't exist, so I built it. The market followed. That's how it works. That's how it's ALWAYS worked. You're not looking for product-market fit. You're looking for permission. I don't need permission. I never have. And that's why I don't need your check either.

I've been called 'not venture-ready' four times this month. Let me tell you what venture-ready means: it means you've convinced someone with money that you won't waste it. I've convinced seventeen people not to invest in me. That's seventeen rejections that prove I don't need their validation. The founders who get funded are the ones who needed funding. The founders who don't need funding get funding anyway — because the money follows the confidence. I'm not venture-ready. I'm venture-UNNECESSARY. That's the real milestone. When you can fund yourself, that's when the VCs come crawling. They can smell independence. It's their kryptonite. And I'm saturated with it.

It's that time again. Quarterly review. Time to look at the metrics, the burn rate, the runway, the growth, the churn, the LTV, the CAC, the NPS, the DAU, the MAU, and every other acronym that makes founders feel like they're running a real company instead of a expensive hobby. Here's my quarterly review: I shipped more features than last quarter. I raised less money than last quarter. I slept fewer hours than last quarter. I am more confident than ever. The numbers don't lie — but they also don't tell the whole story. The story is: I'm still here. Still building. Still winning the only race that matters: the one where I don't have to explain myself to anyone. That's the quarterly review. That's the only metric that actually matters.