Chris DeVore
6.7K posts

Chris DeVore
@crashdev
Professional troublemaker | Pacific Northwest partisan | Founder + Managing Partner @founderscoop

Silicon Valley thinks AI agents are a $20/mo self-serve subscription. Main Street is paying local agencies $10,000 just to turn them on. Everyone assumes AI will be bought primarily online like Slack or Zoom. I think they are wrong. Some of the biggest winners in the AI boom won't be the software vendors. It will be the humans installing it. Here is the reality of SMBs right now: • 54% lack internal AI expertise. • 41% have data quality too poor for AI to even work. • 41% already prefer buying AI through a local IT provider. You cannot "1-click install" a genius AI into a messy CRM or a 15-year-old server. It will just execute the wrong tasks at the speed of light. The AI software will be cheap and a lot will absolutely be bought online. Making it actually work for a messy, real-world business will be expensive. Very bullish on the "Do It For Me" economy being back.

Rents dropping across the country…

I banged on this issue quite a bit in Washington. Non startup people, and even a shocking amount of startup people, did not really get it. A silver lining among all the dumb shit they’ve been doing lately in that state.



my impression is that it's very easy to make money online so long as you're willing to be a boastful, ego-centric bullshitter and sell sham products to a growing fan base. you can easily be a millionaire this way. and perversely, this wealth only earns you more credibility


It’s dishonest and in bad faith to paint people like me as anti-Seattle. If anything, we love this city enough to be honest about it. I hope you one day care about something enough to do the same.


Holy crow you cannot even imagine how many of the top tech people in WA are telling me to go go go and tell this story. they can't do it - it's too desultory looking for current tech execs. I'm unemployed, and well known for having opinions across the city (sorry @ajassy - I still think you are the BEST!). And again, if any politician wants to talk with someone with #livedexperience as a WA native, Tech exec at the top three employers in the state, public school kid, and parent of three... I am here and DMs are open. WA GREAT PEOPLE: These olympia folks you don't know are trying to make sure your most successful kids and grandkids don't want to live here! WHAT THE HECK? Narrator aside...: not a single politician has reached out yet....

For early-stage generalists, "value-add" is what Plato would have called a noble lie. If you remove value-add, venture capital looks like a commodity product. In that environment, all that matters (beyond the essentials) is availability. Who tends to find founders earlier? Small firms. In fact, finding great founders early is most of their edge. If you introduce the concept of "value-add", suddenly founders feel like they ought to be out pitching brand-name firms. The whole dynamic is reversed. The lie is propagated because big firms need it to remain competitive in a world where otherwise small firms are clearly advantaged. Here's all that really matters: be first, be fair, be fast.

My North Star for a Millionaires' Tax is affordability.







