In a world where it’s easier than ever to start and scale a new business, customer service may end up being the ultimate differentiator.

everybody talks about the economics of the ai data center build, the biggest capex buildout in human history not nearly enough people are stepping back to just marvel at the technology itself i just met amin vahdat, leader of google’s ai data center buildout, whose team delivered this beautiful cluster. it is insane the elite level of technology and engineering excellence that goes into every component of the modern data center, from the accelerators to the model codesign to the racks to the networking to the manufacturing and assembly. the chips are the most insane feat of all, but every component of the whole system is a beast. goosebumps. we didn’t get to see the great pyramids get built, but this is even better. amin also predicted for me what this photo might look like for frontier clusters a decade from now…. training data episode drops soon :)

The @BostonCollege Investment Committee (an LP and my beloved alma mater) asked for a few thoughts on what's happening in AI. I recorded a test run yesterday morning and then shared it with my partners, who encouraged me to share it more broadly... so here you go! This is not a sales pitch, it's just a reflection on what we're seeing. And it wasn't intended to be shared, so please pardon the rough edges. loom.com/share/c016702964a04…

Life is a repeat game and an infinite game. People who don't understand this won't win in the long run. Life is long. Choose to work with good people.

At Zappos, we worked hard to ensure we were synonymous with “WOW” service. The lessons I most regularly remind founders of: 1) Develop a culture of customer obsession - obsess over the experience from end to end, not just on the product or service 2) Define your brand of customer service - make every call, chat, or email an opportunity to deliver an incredible branded experience 3) Provide a different AND better experience - empower your team members, and ensure anyone can help the customer with whatever they need 4) Focus on critical input metrics - measure the right input metrics like response time, first-contact resolution, and customer retention, instead of over-focusing on the output metrics like CSAT or NPS 5) Contextualize the customer experience - ensure there’s a daily rollup of feedback that the entire company sees; culture is built by how you behave, not what you say

We all need to update our scale of ambition. Society also struggled to imagine how large the internet, mobile, and cloud could become. AI is no different. Raising ambitions is one lever, consistent compounding is another.

We just submitted a regulatory filing to introduce margin on a subset of long-dated prediction markets. This will not apply to sports, culture, and a few other categories. We are very excited to be taking what we believe is our most important step toward institutional adoption so far. Capital efficiency has been the biggest bottleneck for institutions, and margin is the single most requested feature. Fully collateralizing long-dated contracts ties up substantial capital for months or years, making participation impractical for many institutions. It is very difficult for a large institutional market to develop without margin. Margin addresses that problem by reducing capital requirements, subject to strict risk standards. Some important characteristics of our proposal: • Margin applies only to a narrow set of categories, excluding sports and culture. • It is geared toward institutions and subject to strict eligibility requirements. • The risk methodology is modeled on approaches used by established clearinghouses and tested over decades. It incorporates conservative safeguards around volatility, liquidity, concentration, and event risks, as well as measures to limit sharp increases in margin requirements during market stress. The goal is a better trading experience for users. Greater capital efficiency enables more institutional participation, bringing deeper liquidity and better pricing. That makes our markets more attractive to more traders, whose participation further strengthens liquidity and improves the experience for everyone.

We first met Max and team when they were still Indigo Fair, and pitching a way to revolutionize the way retailers shop for their stores. Wholesale hasn't meaningfully changed in a century, and they offered a better way for retailers to buy than traveling to trade shows and cold-calling reps. They've continued to make great progress on their mission, and the numbers show that. Annualized revenue run rate $730 million in Q3, up 45% YoY. Likely EBITDA profitable in Q4. International expansion into new countries, more product lines like jewelry and apparel, lots of data on what sells vs not, and a potential move into fulfillment. All lining them up for a potential IPO in the next year. Congrats on the continued progress towards the mission, team.

Great insights from a company that does brand well. "Brand starts at the top and has to be authentic to the founders" and "Brand is how much you put in today so that when you spend a dollar on performance marketing two years from now, you get more out of it" are both particularly useful. Because it was founder-led, it's embedded in their culture that the brand should be delightful and creative, just like they and their users are.

One of the most important pushes a strong Board can make is helping you evaluate your team and organization. Boards can help you see people clearly because they aren't blinded by daily interaction, the need to be loved, respected, or feared, or by history or baggage. They can remind you how excited you were to hire XYZ person, and how that person didn't live up to expectations. They also remember the times you stuck your neck out for someone, and how right you were. As a management team member, you likely have loyalty and confirmation bias toward people you have grown up with over the years. One of the most important things each and every year is to evaluate whether someone will be up for the challenge of the coming year. Our bias is yes, but we should look for disconfirming information rather than confirming evidence. Your Board should help you assess this with your executive team, but it's also on you to do a similar exercise with your team down the ranks.

Coding agents struggled to navigate the messiness of DoorDash’s data, so we built our own internal data agent: Vera. Business leaders now can self-sufficiently make critical decisions and answer WBR questions with Vera, which previously would’ve required hours of analyst work. Analysts now oversee our semantic data layer and maintain the eval set. Anyone across DoorDash can now ask Vera and get reliable answers to their business questions. Great work by the team on this one!

The future is already here We just have to choose it and spread it faster

It takes work for founders to get candid feedback from their team members, given there is an asymmetric power dynamic. How to overcome that dynamic: 1) Ask routinely (such as at every 1:1 or All Hands) 2) Actively listen and process (treat the feedback as a gift and listen first) 3) Absorb the synthesis (seek truth about yourself before accepting or rejecting it) 4) Respond and resolve promptly (demonstrate the feedback has been heard) 5) Celebrate the results (highlight examples publicly to the company)

Truly a legend. One of my favorite early interactions with him was at a Zappos board meeting when we were presenting our new core values. He listened carefully, ripped out a half sheet of paper from his notepad, and scribbled with a fountain pen: Profit = POWER. He slipped the paper across the table right before leaving the meeting. Mic drop. That led to our lesser known core value #8, which was the only one that ensured Zappos was a competitive and successful business: Doing More with Less. Without a successful business, no one would write or read about Zappos. Thank you for the wisdom, Michael, then and always.

Legendary companies rarely scale in a linear fashion. When you look at the greatest companies and founders, you’ll find that they bypassed consistency and took leaps forward at various points along their journey, despite differences in their values, leadership style, and path to success. These leaps take vision, inspiration, conviction, strategy, energy, and, most importantly, action. You have to know where you’re aiming, commit with conviction, and then stick the landing. Every leap starts with a leader. A leader must be fearless to take leaps and needs to inspire the team to follow. The CEO has to be the most fearless and push the company to solve the boldest and hardest problems and shape their business and industry. In addition, leaders need to be right a lot. While they have often made plenty of mistakes, they also have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs. As @JensenHuang has said, "no one wants to follow a dumb CEO with a bad strategy."

Astute observations from Mike. "If you are building a venture-backed software company, I think the answer is once again “do it all.” Just build the whole thing – your moat is the totality of what you’ve built and completely owning the buying center. I fear there is no safety in the middle."

Congrats to the Profound team on their Series D. If your team isn't investing in your AEO, you're already late. And great to watch them evolve from AEO services into a full blown agentic marketing platform. Let's go.