new pursuits, prev @tbpn
Los Angeles
Joined September 2021
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Michael Ferro retweeted
The 100 Year Conversation continues with Vlad Tenev.
Vlad was born in Bulgaria and moved to the United States as a child. When he was ten or eleven, he was figuring out investing on dial-up with a pretend portfolio on Yahoo Finance.
At twelve, he made a deal with his father. If he scored above 1300 on the SAT, he’d get his score in dollars to invest. He scored 1370.
You can see the beginnings of Robinhood in that story. Owning stocks felt like collecting to Vlad. He read the shareholder materials he got in the mail and was proud to be an owner. Years later, he helped millions of other people become owners too.
Vlad has a fondness for difficult things. He talks about Robinhood’s toughest moments with a warmth I didn’t expect. “Those are memories I cherish,” he told me. “My only regret was that I didn’t enjoy it more at the time.”
@vladtenev
Michael Ferro retweeted
I hate tech Halloween, what do you mean you’re dressed as Greg Abel, the current CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
Michael Ferro retweeted
We’ve raised a $45m Series A, co-led by
@foundersfund and The @OpenAI Startup Fund, to build cancer therapy that learns. Technology is rapidly changing medicine, but data loops and rapid adjustments are still largely missing. When you start cancer treatment, knowing whether what you’re doing is working is too slow. Clearly there is a better way. Build systems to watch cancer in real time, then feed that data into a system that itself can treat the disease. This seeds a future where, unlike drugs, we develop medicine that continuously learns to improve itself. We've been building neurotechnology and BCI platforms to do just that.
@coherenceneuro
Michael Ferro retweeted
Another takeaway after three years of building a company is that the returns to just "being a good person", and not acting transactionally, are higher than I expected.
There are so many transactional, boring, and at times immoral people in the tech industry that if you act with sustained warmth, authenticity, humor, and integrity, great gifts will be laid before you. White pill.
Michael Ferro retweeted
Palmer Luckey’s Erebor surges to more than $7bn in deposits since launch ft.trib.al/nM9CSbn
Michael Ferro retweeted
Announcing Anorak Ventures Fund III 🚀
Since 2017, we’ve been backing ambitious founders leveraging advanced technology to disrupt the status quo. We invest early and often, writing checks between $250k - $1M with the ability to lead or follow. Focus areas include aerospace and defense, critical infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing, but if you’re passionate about an idea with a 1% chance of making a dent in the universe, @Charlieleg8 and I want to hear from you.
Michael Ferro retweeted
Introducing the Atlas Standard Motor Series
Our head of engineering @AveryMcmillan15 on what we chose to build and why:
Michael Ferro retweeted
@dylanmcguir3 and I just raised a $7.5M pre-seed led by @a16z to build a robotic surgeon @alephsurgery
Much of the early investment in Physical AI has focused on industries where labor is relatively abundant and low-cost. We believe the biggest opportunities to change the world lie at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Surgery is among the most valuable forms of labor on the planet, but it's far too scarce and expensive - due to an exceptionally long training pipeline and highly concentrated expertise.
We’re building the first surgeon that scales: one system that can acquire, refine, and transfer surgical skills across millions of procedures. v1 is already learning to perform surgical tasks autonomously from demonstrations, and improve from its own experience.
Lots of great folks behind us! @BoxGroup, Reveille VC, Constellation, @forward_deploy, @Valkyrie_vc, @DiscipulusVent, @maniacvc + more
Michael Ferro retweeted
This means co-developing the intelligence layer with the business model best suited to capture the value you create. Examples include Cognition deploying FDEs into large enterprises to automate outsourced codebase migrations, Long Lake buying out a platform like Amex Global Travel to disrupt consumer travel with AI, and Crosby building an AI-native law firm for the ground up
Michael Ferro retweeted
One thing you can do with your free will is accumulate a truly ridiculous number of excellent vintage magazines and slowly distribute them to your favorite people
(I’d love to digitize my collection of ~70 Fortunes from the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s — lmk if you can help!)
“The coming boom in Kilowatts” from @FortuneMagazine in….. December 1939
We’ve come ~15 orders of magnitude since and there is no slowing down it seems!
Ty for the gift @tamarawinter 🫶
We need to bring a little ambition back to dinner parties, folks.
In 1903, wealthy industrialist Cornelius Billings invited 36 people to a 14-course dinner on horseback inside a restaurant in New York.
Who is building this?
“The role of the designer is that of a very good, thoughtful host anticipating the needs of his guests.”
— Eames
Ivan Zhao is the co-founder and CEO of Notion.
He grew up painting and practicing Chinese calligraphy. Today, his medium is Notion, whose mission is to give people the tools to make their life’s work.
Ivan is a computing historian with an artist’s sensibility. When he talks about Notion, the conversation moves easily from Engelbart and Smalltalk to Lego and IKEA. He sees something to learn from each about making tools and building a company.
He wants to bring the care of an artist to something millions of people use every day.
“This is my clay. This is my thing I’ve been shaping.”
Michael Ferro retweeted
Ivan Zhao is the co-founder and CEO of Notion.
He grew up painting and practicing Chinese calligraphy. Today, his medium is Notion, whose mission is to give people the tools to make their life’s work.
Ivan is a computing historian with an artist’s sensibility. When he talks about Notion, the conversation moves easily from Engelbart and Smalltalk to Lego and IKEA. He sees something to learn from each about making tools and building a company.
He wants to bring the care of an artist to something millions of people use every day.
“This is my clay. This is my thing I’ve been shaping.”