Grant Gordon
413 posts
Grant Gordon
@Grant__Gordon
GGF. ex @armada_ai, Stanford 🌲, Sequoia Company Design @DecartAI @watneyrobotics @CocoRobotics @superpower @terraindustries @trygravityai
San Francisco, CA Katılım Ağustos 2020
2.1K Takip Edilen1.9K Takipçiler
Today we're launching Era and announcing $11M in funding.
We're building the intelligence layer for a new ecosystem of AI devices — the platform that lets any device manufacturer, brand, designer, or creator make objects that think, respond, and act in their own style.
We're entering a Cambrian explosion — new form factors, new creators, new objects worth desiring. Made by people who've never had the tools to make them, before today.
Welcome to the new Era.
Backed by @AbstractVC, @BoxGroup, @topology_vc, @betaworks, @CollaborativeFund, @MozillaVentures, and @AIResidency.
Era@eraworlds
We’re officially in our new Era.
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Life update: I've decided to leave a16z.
It's been an incredible run. I joined as a Partner about 3 years ago, a very different time in AI timelines. AI was in an early takeoff stage, code hadn't reached its full potential yet, and the RL, robotics, and AI infra landscape was still taking shape. I got to work alongside some of the sharpest founders and AI researchers in tech, backing people working on the most interesting problems.
It wasn't an easy decision. I've loved working with every team I've backed and worked with during this time (and I'll keep working and helping them in any way I can). Cursor had just launched in early 2023 when I met Aman co-hosting a few events at academic conferences back when AI coding was still in its early days, and it was clear since then that they were something special. Every company and team has special, from @cursor_ai, @thinkymachines, @bfl_ml, @WaveFormsAI, @deeptuneai, @ShizukuAILabs (and other unannounced ones). I'm incredibly grateful they let me be a tiny part of their journey.
I'm also incredibly grateful to @bhorowitz, @martin_casado, @pmarca, @JenniferHli, and @sarahdingwang for trusting me very early on and to the entire AI infra team. This team is genuinely special and the best team founders can work with.
What's next? More to come soon on this! This is something I've been thinking about for some time. The progress in AI models, RL, computer-use, robotics, has been staggering, and today we have incredibly powerful tools to work on problems that aren't yet solved and have significant potential at the current pace of progress.
To the entire a16z team, thank you!
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There's a reason @cognition keeps winning deals against companies 10x their size.
@vvkgopalan sat down with @theodormarcu, @bryceehunt and @moritz_stephan (all former founders!) to discuss hiring philosophy, infinity stories, enterprise coding agents, and what it actually takes to compete.
(00:00) Introduction
(03:45) Cognition team & hiring philosophy
(06:00) Infinity stories
(13:15) Product surface area and future goals
(17:20) Activation energy, experimentation, and customer-driven innovation
(19:00) Adoption, operational changes, and ownership
(22:05) Vibe coding hot takes
(24:15) AI-first engineering organizations and managing AI agents
(28:40) Future of software engineering roles and misconceptions about Devin
(30:00) Model development, learnings, and Cognition's journey in vertical integration
(38:10) What should you do as a new grad?
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Grant Gordon retweetledi
Grant Gordon retweetledi
If you're running an AI-native consumer app, agent or coding tool, then we're able to provide monthly ARPUs exceeding your inference costs in many cases!
Shoot me a dm and we'll help you project expected revenue!
andrew chen@andrewchen
for AI-native consumer apps to be truly ubiquitous we need: ARPU > Average Inference Cost Per User. How far away are we from that? Ideally AI native apps can hit APIs on every screen yet also pay for just by throwing some ads on it But I think we’re a while away: - unfort we’re probably >10x off right now. Monthly ARPU is $2-5? Token costs for an AI heavy app might be $20-50 of cost - much of consumer is global. Even if we hit the US/EU it’ll be a while before we can serve the broad base - more importantly every time AI improves, consumers demand more. No one wants to talk to a last gen AI character. If video gets good they’ll want videos everywhere - same issue for LLMs. We started with short replies back. Now we want agents who can do entire tasks for us - it might be we need major innovations in small models or new mobile hardware so that we have free local inference. But that will still not be as good as SOTA cloud LLMs obv, but might solve some use cases No wonder so many products focus on productivity, and on prosumers who can pay $100s or $1000s on work related tasks. This is where you can have huge ARPUs and benefit from being SOTA. And it seems as though there’s no limit for tokens… so why do the low end?
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Grant Gordon retweetledi
I’m joining @SpaceX and @xai with @JasonBud.
X is the company realizing science fiction - reusable rockets, humanoid robots, data centers in space, and more. Almost 10 years ago, I joined SpaceX as an intern on Dragon 2 crew displays. This was in the era of the first rocket landings on barges, long before the Dragon 2 restored human spaceflight to America or Starlink delivered internet from space.
Every day since then, I’ve thought about the next steps to land on the Moon - and to build a city on Mars, data centers in space, the brains behind robots, and beyond. There is no better place to build teams and products from the ground up with planetary scale resources.
If you’re looking to work on the hardest problems that lay a foundation for humanity’s future to the Moon, Mars, and beyond - DM me.
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Grant Gordon retweetledi
@terraindustries raises additional $22M bringing our total seed to $34M. This extension round was led by @Lux capital, with participation from @8vc, Nova Global, Belief Capital, @SilentVentures, Tofino Capital, @R17_Ventures, and angels like US actor @JaredLeto & @jordsnel
In the next few days, we will begin the rapid construction of a 2nd defense megafactory in Africa and grow our engineering workforce.
This new capital accelerates our goal to give Africa the technological edge needed for counterterrorism & infrastructure security.
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Today, I'm thrilled to share that @Garden_Intel is being acquired by SIM IP for $150m — creating the world's leading IP monetization and licensing platform.
SIM IP started off as our customer, and as we spent more time with them among hundreds of other users, we realized that to truly change the market we operate in, we had to vertically integrate to build a one-of-one software enabled business.
To say this journey has been surreal would be an understatement.
I started Garden from my Stanford dorm room as a senior with a laptop and a thesis: reasoning models and better search could help average people understand patents. Little did I know the impact it would have in unlocking the trillions of dollars of untapped value sitting in patent portfolios around the world.
I was a 22-year-old first-time founder who had never raised a dollar, never hired anyone full time, and if we’re being honest, had no idea what I was doing at some points. So many people took a bet on me when they had every reason not to. I will never forget that.
To my team — you are the reason we're here. You believed in a weird idea about AI and patents before it was obvious. You worked nights, weekends, and through moments when the outcome was far from certain. We faced rejection over and over before our use case became obvious. This is your win.
To our investors — thank you for backing a kid with a 5 page memo and a dream. Your conviction gave us the runway to build something real. We made a lot of pivots before we got to something tangible, so your raw conviction in our team is something I will never take for granted.
To our customers — thank you for taking a bet on us and helping usher in the everyday use of reasoning models in patent litigation and prosecution.
To our competitors - thank you for forcing us to be better everyday.
As part of SIM IP, Garden becomes the technology engine behind a pure-play licensing and royalty company that is scaling nine-figures in revenue. We're not just analyzing patents anymore — we're building the infrastructure that will define how innovation is valued and monetized for decades to come.
The mission hasn't changed. We're still obsessed with the same problem: less than 2% of patents ever generate revenue for their inventors. That's a market failure. And now, we have the scale, capital, and team to fix it.
I'm eternally grateful for how far we've come — and even more excited for what's next.
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Very happy to see @angelesahr on this @BusinessInsider list of venture’s rising stars. We’re all gonna wind up working for her one day.
She’s built a phenomenal network and POV around deep tech and hard underwriting. @slow is lucky to have her.
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Grant Gordon retweetledi
In the last month, 1X, Skild, and Physical Intelligence all signaled a shift to human data.
Robotics is caught in a tug-of-war between quality and scale, where reality is the referee. This essay explains why the robot models that best navigate the “Data Pareto Frontier” will win in 2026.
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Grant Gordon retweetledi
.@8vc Founder @JTLonsdale explains why he invested in @terraindustries & @_KingNath:
“We have to fight back for Africa.”
“I think Africa, in our lifetimes, will be the place where we have to confront bad guys.”
“There’s going to be Islamist terrorists there for as long as we’re alive. They’re slaughtering Christians. Adversaries are taking resources.”
“I wanted to find the most competent people we could trust and partner with. They’re going to build great things around Africa and hopefully we’ll bring some of our assets to partner with them as well.”
TBPN@tbpn
.@terraindustries CEO @_KingNath says defense contracting in the US is much more bureaucratic than in Africa: "No one is expecting you to write dozens of proposals and come to their office and present PowerPoints. They're expecting you to already have a solution to the problem." "The defense contracting model in Africa is fundamentally very different from how it's done in the West. In the West, it's quite bureaucratic. It could take you one to two years before you get to a program of record. In Africa, it's very network-based and very solution-first." "The Anduril approach of taking R&D head-on and having the actual products to then go carry out live demos in the field works perfectly for the model of defense contracting on the continent, and that has allowed us to scale very rapidly."
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Grant Gordon retweetledi
Announcing @terraindustries $11.7M round led by 8VC, the VC by Palantir founder @JTLonsdale
Alex Moore, Board Director at Palantir, also joins Terra’s board
@Max_Sengu & I started Terra to give Africa the technological edge needed for resource protection & counterterrorism
(1/3)
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In 2025 | visited 12 factories in Shenzhen, hosted dinners for White House Al advisors, and met with dozens of robotics + hardware founders for Lux.
2026 will be turning point. This letter covers what surprised and intrigued me about this messy love triangle of SF, China, and Washington.
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@sharedalbums I love this. You’re brought something truly special to SF
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14 dinners got me everything I ever wanted in this world.
This is a love letter to everyone who came to a Family Meal in the last 12 months. You took a chance on someone who wasn’t the traditional fit for this community, walked into dinners blind (a hidden guest list and no guarantee of what you’d get out of it) and gave me the one thing in this world you can’t buy back: your time.
Growing up I was drawn to lot of startup movies/shows (The Social Network, Silicon Valley) and all I ever wanted as someone 10,000 miles away from where all of that was happening, was to be in it.
In the restaurant industry, family meal is a moment when bartenders, servers, cooks, dishwashers eat together and get to know each other outside of service. Too often as founders, researchers, investors, engineers, you’re expected to always have the right answers, be “impressive” and in a constant state of being “on.” In a world where everything is so transactional, Family Meal was created to take you off your proverbial line and give everyone a break from the performance.
For 14 dinners I’ve kept Family Meals sponsor-free to keep the intention behind it all pure. I didn’t want homework from anyone to deliver insights, founders, or potential recruits on a platter. In our world, money is a commodity and protecting what makes these dinners feel genuine is a price I’d happily pay. I think it has served us well.
And through this experiment I’ve found some of the most non-transactional, inspiring, and quietly brilliant people that put me in awe everyday.
14 dinners got me everything I ever wanted in this world, and it has been a great pleasure being your host.
Season 2 starts in 2026.
your host,
alicia
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As a kid, I used to create Minecraft maps that millions of people played on. My dream is to bring that same creativity to the real world. I want the physical world to become as inspiring as the internet has been.
So I started a new company, @DraftedAI, to solve this!
Drafted@DraftedAI
Hello World 👋 Welcome to Drafted — an AI tool that lets anyone design a home from scratch, tailored to your life. techcrunch.com/2025/12/23/thi…
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excited to share the launch of belief capital and announce the close of our first fund!
belief is built to be a concentrated, incentive-aligned partner to founders from day one, because founders don’t get to take a portfolio approach to life.
grateful to the early support from LPs and friends -- onwards!
sifted.eu/articles/belie…
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