Max Olson
4.1K posts
@maxolson
Product @Mashgin. Seed & public market investing. Software/design for fun and profit. Book publisher. Blog: https://t.co/dgci8MUJ2w / Buffett book: https://t.co/fQ2DtO3a3F
Quick recap of @planet earnings here. Inc. 41% growth rate and Rule of 40 in Q4 & >$900M in backlog. Very proud of our team. 2026 is the year for AI for Planet. It will unlock markets faster than ever. Playing to Win. Check out our full results here: investors.planet.com/news/news-deta… $PL
The Bitter Lesson of Robotics: It's extremely easy to make a video of a robot doing something once under perfect conditions then post it to X. But it often takes a decade to harden systems and design for all the insane edge cases of the real world. Many companies raising $$$$ on cool demos, but all the hard work comes after
BREAKING: Inside a16z's $22B AUM Growth Fund Waymo, Kalshi, Coinbase, Robinhood, Stripe, Revolut, ElevenLabs, Flock Safety, Harvey, EliseAI, Hebbia, Roblox, Anduril, Sardine With a fresh $6.75B Growth fund, General Partner Alex Immerman (@aleximm) shares how @a16z evaluates category leaders & why firms are rethinking old metrics in the AI era. “If you look at OpenAI & Anthropic alone, those two companies added as much revenue last year as 1/2 of the public cloud universe excluding the Mag Seven.” Even as AI added ~$6T in market value to the stock market in 2025, we discuss the private companies driving the next wave of growth. Topics include: • Marc Andreessen lore • Why the fastest-growing tech companies are still private • Waymo’s expansion & the future of autonomous vehicles • ElevenLabs & the breakout of voice AI platforms • Kalshi & the rise of prediction markets • The four largest tech companies adding 1% to U.S. GDP growth with $400B in spending in 2025 • How a16z grew from a startup VC to capturing 18% of all U.S. venture capital • Why engagement, retention, & product defensibility matter more than ever Full conversation ↓ 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Alex Immerman, GP a16z (00:53) Flock Safety: Most underrated company in America (03:43) Private vs public market growth gap (04:43) Do gross margins matter in AI companies? (06:33) Waymo’s growth & $16B funding round (08:13) The future of ride sharing & autonomous vehicles (10:01) Where the value in self driving tech will accrue (12:27) Tesla FSD vs Waymo’s full stack approach (13:50) The growing brand power of Waymo (15:43) What comes after autonomous cars? (17:41) Are people really worried about AI taking over? (18:55) Inside ElevenLabs’ $500M funding round (22:12) The real world use cases of voice AI agents (22:55) How a16z invested in Kalshi (24:11) Why Kalshi over Polymarket? (26:35) Prediction markets vs g*mbling (29:33) Is fintech making a comeback? (32:44) Why stablecoins are becoming important (33:30) Lessons from Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong (34:19) How a16z evaluates growth companies (36:52) Where startups spend money: R&D vs marketing (38:44) Why startups need a strong Act 2 (40:08) Why venture outcomes are getting bigger & bigger (42:24) Why backing the market leader matters (43:49) The best books for founders (44:59) How a16z built its media machine (47:03) Who will be the first Trillionaire?
There's a lot of stress about which engineering jobs will remain as AI tools keep improving. IMHO deep tech company jobs will be safe for a while. Deep tech product teams are often in person, need to collaborate across engineering domains, & products can't just be vibe coded.
@nummanali tmux grids are awesome, but i feel a need to have a proper "agent command center" IDE for teams of them, which I could maximize per monitor. E.g. I want to see/hide toggle them, see if any are idle, pop open related tools (e.g. terminal), stats (usage), etc.
@lrocket @SpaceAbhi Gwynne and I didn’t tell the company, as it would have been demoralizing
@lrocket @SpaceAbhi Gwynne and I didn’t tell the company, as it would have been demoralizing
@lrocket @SpaceAbhi Gwynne and I didn’t tell the company, as it would have been demoralizing
@lrocket @SpaceAbhi Gwynne and I didn’t tell the company, as it would have been demoralizing
SpaceX is one of the most dominant companies on the planet and their performance gap just keeps getting bigger. In 2025, SpaceX launched more mass to orbit than every other provider on Earth combined. MUCH MORE: every payload from China, Russia, Europe, and all American launchers wasn’t even a fifth of what SpaceX put into orbit. They’re the only company producing rockets at an industrial scale. The practices that made SpaceX dominant aren’t unique to rockets. They’re a blueprint for building anything hard. This episode — and the essay it is based on — explores How SpaceX Works:
SpaceX is one of the most dominant companies on the planet and their performance gap just keeps getting bigger. In 2025, SpaceX launched more mass to orbit than every other provider on Earth combined. MUCH MORE: every payload from China, Russia, Europe, and all American launchers wasn’t even a fifth of what SpaceX put into orbit. They’re the only company producing rockets at an industrial scale. The practices that made SpaceX dominant aren’t unique to rockets. They’re a blueprint for building anything hard. This episode — and the essay it is based on — explores How SpaceX Works:
