🌊 AI is getting a memory

OpenAI founder predicts the next decade, Anthropic learns new “Skills", and Gong data reveals how humans still win in the age of AI.

I’m Ivan. This is a weekly brief on how top 1% startups use ai, raise capital, and grow. The highest signal-to-word startup newsletter you’ll read.

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Hello there - back from a tech event at a longevity blue zone, class.

Here’s what went down in startup-land this week:

🤖 AI

• Karpathy, one of OpenAI’s founders, just dropped the most important AI talk of the year. He says we don’t need true intelligence for impact because most work is pattern matching and AI already 2–3x’s that. What we call agents are still scripted assistants, not autonomous. Says the real unlock will be memory, reasoning and reflection (really worth a listen, but be ready to pay attention 😉).

• Data from Ramp AI index + an analysis by

  Kyle Poyar
  points out that AI adoption flattened in September, with startups moving from hype to proof (positive retention signs in the enterprise + bigger and bigger contract sizes though).

• Found a great list of 160+ YC summer startups, surprise surprise mostly AI. Mostly vertical focus, real-world use, and infrastructure use-cases. Fewer chatbots, more back offices, factories, and devices getting smart.

• The infamous Chammath shared some concerning data on the decrease in usage of several vibe coding tools or as he calls them “Slopware App-crappers” 😅.

• Anthropic launched Claude Code on the web, letting developers run and track multiple coding tasks directly from their browser.

• Anthropic also launched Agent Skills, which basically lets Claude “learn on demand.” Think of them like plug-in brains, folders of instructions or scripts Claude loads only when needed.

• Google dropped Veo 3.1, its upgraded AI video model built for filmmakers who want more control. It can now keep characters consistent across scenes, blend start and end frames smoothly, and extend clips up to a full minute.

• OpenAi dropped a new browser called Atlas.

• Perplexity shipped a new experience for learning languages.

🌊 VC

• Menlo ventures published a market analysis on healthcare AI. A $4.9T sector (20% of the US economy) now deploying ai 2.2x faster than the broader economy

• Elad Gil
  (investor in 40+ unicorns) was on the
  Sourcery
  podcast dropping gold for founders and investors.

• Great pod with Sequoia’s Roelof Botha on how venture capital is broken. I summarised the main insights here.

• I keep running into what has now become a meme on twitter, Silicon Valley’s scene on a founder that killed his startup by raising too much money.

• Legendary Benchmark investor Bill Gurley dropped a new book (worth it).

• Coatue dropped its “Fantastic 40”, basically a curated index of the 40 companies best positioned to lead in an AI-driven world. Think of it as the new FAANG benchmark for the next decade.

• YC reminder that the real edge isn’t spotting what’s hot but having the conviction to build what looks stupid right before it becomes inevitable. Basically by the time something feels safe it’s already saturated (this is always a good reminder).

• Great piece by Dan Gray on how venture was meant to be adventure capital, how investors are outsourcing decisions to “herd behaviour signal” + broken incentives. On the flip-side, this also means there’s a big opportunity to build better VC firms (and a good reminder that it is not the firm, it is the person).

• Nikunj Kothari
  wrote about how “surrendering to chaos” is how you stay ahead. Founders look for PMF frameworks because they “want permission to stop being scared”, but maps only show where others have already been.

• You can now fundraise directly from Stripe Atlas.

• Great fundraising data room template by

  Chris Tottman
  .

🧩 Founder Frameworks

• Bezos on the most important question nobody asks.

• Sam Altman on how to increase your surface area for luck.

• Michael Dell on how to make mistakes (small and fast).

🤖 How to sell with AI

We ran a workshop with my friend Sunny at Gong (>$7.3B valuation), it was a blast.

He analysed 600K+ calls to find what works best when humans and AI sell together.

Startup Riders Pro members get the full 20-slide deck (dm me) + full video workshop: