Today we introduced @foundry_hq Cohort 1 to the world🚀 26 companies. 38 founders. 8 countries. Excited to be part of the team building this from the ground up. Looking forward to seeing what these founders build from here.

At @spc, we are trying to reconcile two things: 1. We have never seen technological progress this rapid or fundamental. Nothing seems impossible. 2. Capital is flowing to consensus teams, in consensus markets, and with consensus terms. So we’re running a new experiment: $200K, uncapped, to a handful of unapologetically maximalist thinkers who want to try a truly out-there idea.

We discovered a sophisticated recording device that was hidden inside one of our offices. We used our models to understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier. We referred the matter to the FBI, and we’re grateful to the agents and prosecutors who moved quickly to make an arrest. The FBI’s investigation is ongoing and we will continue to support their work. At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data. The employee was terminated. We take protecting our technology, data, and people seriously, and as a matter of national importance. Our security program is designed to protect against a wide range of threat actors, from insider risks to cybercriminals to nation states, and this case is an example of how AI can help address these sophisticated security threats.

SPEEDRUN 008 APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN we are now taking intros/recos for founders we should be meeting for SR008 We have a new SF office where we’ll be hosting the residency, and I will personally be working with founders on growth/distribution/fundraising/more. Apply now for a Jan 2027 start And yes, we do invest up to $1M but we do lots of other things for you too :) more info: sr.a16z.com — SPEEDRUN 008 We invest up to $1M in your new startup. Applications for SR008, our next residency, are open now through November 1, 2026. SR008 runs February 1 to April 16, 2027, in San Francisco at our new offices in Jackson Square We help founders with capital, customers, and talent. When you join speedrun, you get: - Capital: Up to $1M, plus $10M+ in credits from 200+ partners through the speedrun Marketplace. When you’re ready to raise your next round, Demo Day puts you in front of a room full of investors. - Customers: Introductions to executives and customers through SR Insiders, our network of 150+ C-suite founding members and 1,000+ executives and operators. You’ll also get AI Faire and Tech Week to meet buyers in person, Launch Lab to get your product in front of people, and Brand Lab to shape how you show up from day one. - Talent: Access to the Talent Network of 171,000+ people, which our team is always growing, plus hiring and HR support as your team scales. You’ll also be building alongside a community of 1,000+ speedrun founders who support each other with customer introductions and product feedback.

i built @WisprFlow’s paid ads program here’s how i’d rebuild it in 30 days

I want to refer cracked founders to VC's and angels. If you’re building something cool, I can help with a referral. Please comment below. DM is also open.

WTF is a SOTA Wife? SOTA Wives is a podcast exploring the unfiltered side of Silicon Valley. We built it as an antidote to the performative polish of tech Twitter. Brought to you by @MilksandMatcha x @vivianmshen. Episode 1 goes live on Monday, 12th October at 9 AM PT on everywhere you get your podcasts 💙

It took me 5 minutes to get into the Claude Startups program And you don't need VC funding anymore What you get: - A year of Claude Team - API credits - Priority rate limits - Deals on the tools a startup runs on How to apply: - Create a Claude Console account (the API one, not the app) - Use a company email, not Gmail - Go to claude.com/programs/startups - Fill in the form with what you're building on Claude Easiest trade I've made all year

One thing I love about SF is meeting people online and then the next minute you are grabbing coffee in the city. There is something about meeting someone in person that just strengthens the relationship.

Building an agent startup in this economy? Got some good news for you- we're giving away 100 free instances to 1 startup everyday for the next 10 days. All you need to do is book a 15 min appointment with me, tell me what you're building & if it gets us excited - we will onboard you immediately. Comment A37 below & follow me, will send you the calendar invite.

How do you build your own Dots or open-source Grok Bot? Start as high up the stack as you can. Use the most off-the-shelf layer that still gives you the control you need, and only move down when your agent requires it. We had @an_engineer_log , founder of YC F26 startup Agent37, walk us through what he’s seen work across real agent products. A few things that stood out: - Dots, Muse, Instinct & Grok Bot are finished products. If you want to build your own version, Hermes or OpenClaw give you much of the machinery already. If you need fine-grained control over the agent loop and context, go further down to something like Pi. - don't automate a workflow before you understand it. do it manually with an agent first, then turn the repeatable parts into skills. One product we discussed ended up with 100+ skills for its workflow. - same with evals. don't start by designing an eval suite for a process you barely understand. Run it manually a few times, learn what "good" looks like, then encode those signals. - if you're building for multiple users, don't run them all in the same computer/sandbox to save money. Give each user their own isolated environment. - humans can be part of the agent architecture too. @an_engineer_log spent countless hours trying to make browser automation reliable, then realized it was better to have a human handle the brittle browser/form steps while the agent did the rest. We also walk through a working Dots-like agent built on Hermes , with its own browser, files, memory, and computer per user. @Agent37HQ is also giving free credits to listeners who want to try running their own agents in an agent sandbox. First people to reply to this thread will get them. 00:00 Choosing an agent stack 03:29 Products vs. harnesses 04:43 The abstraction ladder 07:21 Memory and scheduling 15:16 When to customize 18:33 Where agents run 24:34 Agent sandbox economics 26:27 One sandbox per user 28:36 From manual work to skills 37:54 Rent humans 42:43 Harness by use case 47:01 Building a Dots-like agent

If you are a non-technical founder in SF looking for a technical co-founder, go to hackathons. I just finished one we organized at Corgi Cafe, and honestly, hackathons are one of the best places to meet technical founders.

@Agent37HQ - is the most affordable sandbox for teams building agents. We're 94% lower cost than most sandbox providers. Every team building an AI agent product ends up rebuilding the same plumbing. Each agent needs its own private computer that keeps its files, wakes when someone messages it, and costs almost nothing while idle. That's why we built Agent37. It comes with - Ready to launch templates for agent harness like Hermes, Claude Code, OpenCode etc. - Managed MCPs for 1000+ app integrations - Metered payments per minute instead of locking into monthly subscriptions. Tag anyone who's building agents today. I will send them my calendar link & help launch real quick. @ycombinator

I led engineering at Google DeepMind. Today, I'm proud to introduce Fo to give personal AI something no lab ever has... Humans. Other personal AI's pretend AI can do everything. Fo employs humans to do tasks that AI cannot. - 2x better at real-world task completion (beats other agents by 69%) - 94% trust rate (4x less likely to leak private info vs Muse, Instinct) Sign up for free: wajo.ai/join-wajo

I wrote a retrospective on 25 years of San Francisco tech culture, and how the scene has changed: noahpinion.blog/p/four-eras-…

Opening my SF guest room up to founders that are friends of friends. The value of spending time in SF as a founder has never been higher. And housing has never been harder. If you know incredible founders who should come to SF and stay with me, send them this.

Today is Startup Foundry Demo Day 🚀 Eleven founders from Cohort 1 pitching live. Six weeks of work, and today is the day they show it. Proud of what these founders have built.

LDN ➡️ NYC ➡️ SF Ship SF is happening on October 15th and you’re not registered yet??? I’m giving away 30 free tickets, reply here and I will DM you a code vercel.com/ship

This is Sam Altman at 25 years old, pitching Loopt to a person in a diner It’s strange to watch now because he runs one of the most influential companies in the world The app was a location-sharing app but nobody thinks about it when they think of Sam It got me wondering how many founders are probably in their Loopt era rn? The company they’re working on may not be the one they become known for It might just be the company that teaches them how to sell, hire, raise money, and keep going long enough to find "it" But at the time, it looks like a kid trying to explain a weird location app to a stranger over lunch

Meet @islam_sohazur , founder of @ReachLLM , pitching at Foundry Day on September 23. ReachLLM is an AI-native agency that boosts your AI search visibility, getting your brand recommended by AI. Foundry Day is our virtual showcase closing out Startup Foundry's inaugural cohort, where our founders present to a curated room of investors and operators. Investors and partners who want to meet exceptional early-stage founders early. Request an invitation here: luma.com/w6w3hycp

Next week, we close out the inaugural cohort of @foundry_hq with Foundry Day. On September 23, a curated group of founders building across AI and frontier technologies will pitch live, alongside a State of Venture panel on where early-stage capital is going right now. It is virtual and invitation-only, built for the investors, angels, operators, and partners who want to meet exceptional founders. Request an invitation here: luma.com/w6w3hycp