Michael Weksler

Let's talk about data and dbt at Foundations on Nov 7th!

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🍜Anybody up for some ramen? I am excited to share that I am back in the garage, building again (it’s actually a house in the Berkeley Hills). We are taking the wraps off of Supercog AI, a new startup focused on solving Application Integration using LLM powered agents. My co-founder in this new venture is a great friend of mine (and a former co-founder partner), Alex Osborne. Alex and I have worked around the application integration space for a long time, and we are unrealistically excited about applying the GenAI stack to this problem. Not many people relish the task to get some bits to move from system A to system B. But it’s a critical job to be done, and that’s led to a lot of brittle scripts, a myriad of inflexible “no code” tools, and a lot of hand crafted SQL. But the power of the Large Language Model, trained on a huge corpus of information, offers a remarkable tool to solve this problem. The LLM you use today already knows the APIs of hundreds of popular systems. It knows the SQL dialects of every major database. It understands the semantics and data schemas of many popular SaaS systems. It understands much of the specific domain in which your business operates. I like to call the AI revolution “the last platform shift”. That may turn out to be hyperbole, but I definitely believe we are in the very early stages of seeing what this new stack can enable. I know we are hardly the first folks to claim that “amazing stuff is coming!”. But this is why Alex and I have decided to focus on a real and hard problem. If we can prove that LLMs can power a new way to solve this problem, it will be the first successful *new* approach in 15 years.. We will have much more to share about this new platform soon. In the meantime, if you’re interested in getting a peek - or even better if you have application or data integration tasks that you would like some help with - please reach out because we want to help. #genai #startups #backinthegarage

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On Agent Dev & The Case for The Engineer’s Creative Process Agent development pulls engineers closer to the headspace of artist - and my bet is if engineers embrace and protect their creative processes, we unlock the next level of innovation in this agentic era. In machine learning, the saying goes, "it is more art than science." Building agents is a non-deterministic process that adds significant variance into systems. Engineers would be well-served to hone their creative process. The best engineers will become artists. 1. Building isn’t linear. Building agent infrastructure is far from linear. Engineers often experience a cycle of frustration and eventual breakthroughs. While not perfect, these reasoning systems are now stable enough for integration into our tools and lives. The history of AI, from machine learning to deep learning, has always involved non-linear development. Today's agent infrastructure development is even less linear, requiring engineers to understand complex semantic translations and carefully manage user rollouts to avoid failures. 2. Building with a relationship to the work. With new forms of intelligence come new relationships. Engineers must navigate a relationship to work that involves agent memory and understanding. What is it to build a system that knows you? When people feel understood, they feel loved. What is it to love the systems we’re creating? How does a creative process help? A non-linear process and a relationship to the work are the territories of the artist. Engineers, trained towards control, must embrace uncertainty, risk embarrassment, and accept that their efforts might yield unexpected results. We’re glimpsing a creator's role in a system that understands. While engineers have largely operated in a logical space, they are now called to form a heart connection with the systems they build. A creative process helps artists endure challenges and breathe life into their work. It involves a commitment to creating, discipline, and accepting that one can only control the process, not the outcome. Agent development pulls engineers closer to the mindset of artists. If engineers embrace and protect their creative processes, we can unlock the next level of innovation in society. Read more on this on my Twitter: https://x.com/ashebytes

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Panels are more fun with old friends, Dipen Mehta, and new ones, Tingting JIANG and Sheryl Chen. At Money20/20 I focused on a very important topic for Fintech - Responsible AI. 3 takeaways I wanted the audience leave with: 1️⃣ Data Privacy is Paramount: To maintain trust and comply with regulations, prioritize robust strategies like federated learning, differential privacy, secure enclaves, strong data governance, and certifications. Financial institutions must carefully consider how to handle the sensitive data needed to power Gen AI. 2️⃣ Proactive Bias Mitigation is Essential: Address the potential for discriminatory outcomes head-on by utilizing tools for explainability, fairness testing, and various bias mitigation techniques. Integrate a dedicated process for identifying and addressing bias throughout the AI lifecycle. 3️⃣ Ethical AI Requires a Holistic Approach: Success goes beyond technology. Embed AI principles (fairness, transparency), ensure human oversight in decision-making, and collaborate across departments for responsible development and deployment. Foster a company-wide culture of ethical AI. #responsibleAI #AI #money2020

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Worth reading: Generative AI is not going to build your engineering team for you. So, so good - peppered with gem quotes and observations- chuckle. https://lnkd.in/gZBKtU4X Thanks to Eric Brooke for sharing.

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How did you meet your co-founder at LendAPI? It’s one of the most frequently asked questions, and I truly believe the stars were aligned at that time. I feel blessed to have Tim as a partner on this journey. Here is the story: https://lnkd.in/gDeFYQG8 #fintech #startup

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Interesting read from DC Palter. Thoughts? ===== "Every founder thinks they want as much cash as they can get, but if they haven’t found product-market fit (and by definition, a pre-revenue company hasn’t found PMF) they’re going to need to pivot at least three times before they get rolling. The more they spend now on what will turn out to be a dead end, the harder it will be to pivot. Attempting to fly before you can crawl is a recipe for crashing." An Open Letter to VCs: Please Get Out of Pre-Seed Investing https://lnkd.in/gzC7HtZ8

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Yesterday, we announced unlimited in-app wallets for developers building on thirdweb. By claiming the offer, devs can create e-mail, phone number, social wallets using our Connect SDK for free over the next 12 months. We've taken the industry price of ~$0.04/active wallet -> $0. ❓ Why did we make this move? We believe now is the perfect time to remove all the friction for developers because of the advancements in app chains, AA & dev tools. 1. The cost and time of transactions have gone down significantly due to the propagation of L2 & L3 networks. Games & apps can finally use web3 as a backend without worrying about performance. No more waiting seconds for transactions and paying cents every time. 2. We've seen game studios like InfiniGods onboard tens and thousands of real players by fully abstracting away the "blockchain experience". Using AA + in-app wallets, they've removed the need for players to manage seed phrases, fund gas & sign transactions. Here's how: - user creates a wallet using social (i.e. Apple or Telegram) - a smart account is automatically generated - smart account delegates a session key to the developer's backend wallet - developer can now pay for gas and sign on behalf of the user Now, when players are inside the game, events can still happen on chain without players needing to find gas tokens or signing pop-ups. Finally the advancements in infra, chains, and dev tools are converging to a point where the limitation for what people can build is no longer on the technology. By reducing cost to start by zero, we are betting on the creativity of developers in the ecosystem. If you are a dev who wants to build with unlimited wallets, go here to claim the offer (https://lnkd.in/gt_Ke3tZ)!

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In doing research on startups and VC funding, I came across an excellent Ted Talk by Pava LaPere. Her life was tragically cut short, but her amazing work lives on through the company she founded, EcoMap, which makes data more accessible for entrepreneurs and others. Take a minute to hear her story. We could use more entrepreneurs in this world. #startups #VCFunding #Entrepreneurship #Innovation #TedTalk #EcoMap

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🚀 Excited to announce my new company: /dev/agents. I’m building the next-gen operating system for AI agents, joining my former colleagues Hugo Barra, Nicholas Jitkoff, and Ficus Kirkpatrick as co-founders. We're excited to partner with Nina Achadjian (Index Ventures) and Jill (Greenberg) Chase (CapitalG). Modern AI will fundamentally change how people use software in their daily lives. Agentic applications could, for the first time, enable computers to work with people in much the same way people work with people. But it won’t happen without removing a ton of blockers. We need new UI patterns, a reimagined privacy model, and a developer platform that makes it radically simpler to build useful agents. That’s the challenge we’re taking on. We're building a cloud-based OS for trusted agents to work with users across all of their devices. We want to help people spend time on what matters to them. Sound interesting? Find us at sdsa.ai.

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If you're running a data or AI-focused startup, connect with Stephan Goupille and his team! When three of the industry's brightest data minds join forces to back your venture, you get more than just funding – you gain invaluable operator expertise. They understand the challenges and opportunities you face because they've been there themselves.

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I was honored to join the conversation again at #ProductCon in October. "Story First" is a practice I continue to challenge myself and my teams to stick to. I use the word "challenge" because it's more natural to just dive into solutioning, requirements, designs and architectures. When we begin by telling this success story of the customer, it improves focus in every downstream part of the product process and it drives increased customer value into the resulting solution.

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This is an interesting article from SaaStr sharing data from ICONIQ Capital about revenue per employee. “These are useful yardsticks for folks scaling: At less than $25m ARR, actually SaaS start-ups aren’t any more efficient than in 2017-2019, at $130,000 per employee / FTE. Although that’s still more efficient than the Boom Times. At $25m-$100m ARR, SaaS scale-ups are about 25% more efficient than they used to be, at $172,000 in revenue per employee / FTE. Time to get real at $25m ARR, apparently 😉 And at $100m+ ARR, they are 20% more efficient then they used to be, at $249,000 in revenue per employee. On the path to the $300k+ we see in public SaaS leaders.” At Worksmith in October, our annualized revenue per employee was $238K. https://lnkd.in/gqkkpjEW

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I've spent multiple semesters in the SAC and learned a lot about my own investment thesis, learning the mechanics of investing and meeting fascinating startups! If you're on the fence about angel investing, this is a good starting point

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A PATH FOR SMALLER IPOs From Carl Chiou (quoted verbatim), an example of a smaller IPO and what it takes. Thanks Carl! ---- I’ve been busy working on a complex transaction we announced yesterday morning. Powerfleet (AIOT), a ~$500mm market cap vertical software company announced a $200mm acquisition of a privately owned competitor concurrently with a $70mm equity issuance via a PIPE as part of a larger financing package. Why is this relevant to you? Because it demonstrates the art of the possible for smaller companies that aspire to become public companies. First, investor demand absolutely exists for smaller market cap issuers as the company raised nearly 20% of its market cap to finance a transformative acquisition. While it may feel like the path to IPO for private companies requires $500mm+ of revenue, that’s simply not the reality. But… Second, success doesn’t happen overnight as many investors had already met with the company multiple times at conferences and their familiarity with the business and management team allowed them to move quickly. For private companies, that means being active and targeted in investor outreach in the 12-18 months leading up to an IPO. Third, giving up some of the pie to grow the pie can be a win-win for everyone. The equity offering priced at $3.50 versus a prior day close of $4.66, but two days post-announcement, shares are trading comfortable above $5. As much as I’ve written about optimizing IPO pricing, I’m also realistic that for smaller cap issuers, investors are going to underwrite more conservative valuations to accept the risk of less liquid, potentially higher volatility stocks. Fourth, the consolidation thesis resonates with investors as it simplifies the competitive landscape, adds revenue scale and drives improved operational and financial efficiency that improves the bottom line. I continue to believe that as much as the large strategics and private equity will play a role in clearing out the private tech pipeline, small – midsize companies will also be key participants going forward. End of day, Databricks, Stripe and other large scale, high-fliers are going to garner instant investor attention and a high multiple out of the gate when they eventually go public. But for everyone else, it’s important to know that with the right expectations, there is a clear path to an IPO. 1:10 PM · Sep 19, 

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My deepest gratitude to Sarah Kaufman, Paul Cherukuri, and Chethan Sarabu, MD for sharing their time and expertise at Luminary Labs' Climate week Lab Session. All too often, the climate conversation falls prey to oversimplification, labeling some industries, technologies, or interventions as "good" for the planet and others "bad." While there are certainly examples of actors causing extreme harm, more often this assertion conceals a more complex duality: Essential sectors of our society and economy — from education to transportation — contribute to climate change while also facing the impacts of rising temperatures and extreme weather. As a society, we must align on the acceptable tradeoffs of the technologies we have today AND continue to innovate to improve upon what is possible today. For example: 🏥 Healthcare's reliance on single-use materials and high consumption of gasses and power contribute to the sector’s significant environmental footprint. But it’s not as simple as reusing and recycling; disposable syringes are wasteful, but have saved millions of lives — and few patients and providers are willing to return to times when life expectancies were shorter and patient outcomes were more precarious. 🚘 Transportation is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions –– and at the same time, our aging transportation infrastructure is ill-equipped to handle current and worsening climatic extremes.  High temperatures and flooding frequently disrupt multiple modes of transportation, and urban sprawl makes implementing more sustainable interventions difficult. Looking to the future, the experts on the panel also recognized that these sectors will play a key role in driving climate solutions – from mobility wallets to rethinking hospital supply chains. As each panelist explored this duality, a central question emerged: How can leaders advance sustainable innovations while also ensuring that essential aspects of our society and economy are resilient and thriving? https://lnkd.in/evn3qJ2p Image courtesy of April Renae.

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During yesterday's LibreQoS APNIC webinar, I posed the question: won't more bandwidth solve these problems? As Herbert Wolverson said, yes, more bandwidth is good, but, still these problems remain if queueing is done incorrectly. Here's my take on why bandwidth alone is not as good as bandwidth + good queueing policies: Generally it was believed that 'data is important, so don't throw it away; hang on to it and send it later'. In practice, this has proven to be suboptimal as two issues may emerge: 1) latency increases for some flows due to heavy demand from other flows using the same bottleneck link, 2) even a single flow can have excessive latency due to aspects of typical TCP behavior (referred to bufferbloat) when the buffers grew large enough that the data being buffered was retransmitted anyway. It turns out that not all data is equally important. Active Queue Management is the art of deciding priorities, both in deciding what data to throw away, but also in allowing some later arriving data to be transmitted ahead of data in another connection that arrived before it. These problems have been studied, and good solutions have been found by using certain queueing policies in routers and switches, referred to as “fq_codel’ and “cake”. These track the different flows not by classifying the data, but by watching the behavior. Flows that send relatively little data (DNS lookups), or at a measured pace (video chat) have priority over flows that send a lot of data as quickly as possible (App and System updates, Video and ISO downloads).

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