Joe Magyer

I walked away from a 5-star fund and hundreds of millions in AUM to focus on investing in early-stage startups. Here’s why: seaplaneventures.com/post/why-i-shi…

the demand for intelligence improvement will be in the same order of magnitude as intelligence itself (and potentially even more). and the rapid increase in RL environments / data spend is the very beginning of this playing out. a world where you can predictably buy more "IQ" points for your AI system is a world where every single enterprise dedicates a large portion of their budget buying such units of intelligence improvements. the trillion dollar market & the largest job sector ever is just now getting started.

Wife: “Oh, no. I left my fanny pack with my keys at @LeRoyandLewis. Do you mind going back today to pick them up when they open?” Me:

Excited to share my conversation with @ntippmann! Nick is a vertical AI and GTM expert so it was great to talk shop with him about AI, how B2B SaaS evolved, and how distribution has changed. Here are some takeaways and insights from the conversation: Vertical AI changes the value proposition from efficiency to execution. Nick’s core framing is that SaaS helped people save time, while vertical AI can actually do the work. That shift changes the buyer, the budget, the pricing model, and the ceiling for how large these companies can become. The real TAM unlock is services and labor, not software. Traditional vertical SaaS was constrained by software budgets. Vertical AI can compete with outsourced services, internal labor, and professional work that previously sat outside the software spend category. That is why Nick sees the opportunity as dramatically larger than the prior wave of vertical SaaS. The best vertical AI companies will not be thin wrappers. Nick’s bet is on companies that combine workflow software, domain-specific context, proprietary data, and agentic execution. The model is not “AI replaces SaaS,” but “SaaS evolves into a system of work.” Incumbents are vulnerable when their strength becomes rigidity. Legacy systems of record often have distribution, data, and customer relationships, but they can also be slowed by old architecture, existing pricing models, and organizational inertia. Nick is most interested in markets where the incumbent is entrenched but not especially nimble. Distribution and trust may matter more in AI, not less. Because software is easier to build, it is harder to stand out. Nick argues that content, community, events, brand, empathy, and domain expertise remain critical. In vertical AI, credibility with the buyer can be a moat before the product moat fully compounds. Outcome-based pricing is becoming the new frontier. AI products are pushing companies away from seat-based SaaS pricing and toward pricing tied to completed work: per resolved ticket, per document, per workflow, per enriched record, or against avoided professional services spend. The best pricing models will align with the value customers actually experience. Forward-deployed services are not a weakness; they may be evidence of where value accrues. Nick sees OpenAI and Anthropic building services-heavy motions as a sign that intelligence alone does not solve enterprise problems. Context, implementation, workflow integration, and judgment still matter — which supports the vertical AI thesis. Seed investors need to look past the demo. In a world where a founder can vibe-code a polished product quickly, Nick focuses on deeper questions: Does the company get better with usage? Is there proprietary data exhaust? Are there reinforcement loops? Can the wedge expand into adjacent workflows? Is there a real vision beyond the initial tool? The wedge still matters, but the expansion timeline is compressing. Nick acknowledges that AI lets companies build more faster, but he still wants a sharp entry point. The difference is that founders may need to move from wedge to broader workflow coverage much earlier than in the SaaS era. GC AI is a case study in founder-market fit plus distribution. Nick backed the company because Cecilia Ziniti brought deep credibility in legal, had early community instincts, and chose a focused wedge in in-house legal. The insight was not just that legal work fits LLMs; it was that in-house legal has distinct workflows, budgets, and pain points from law firms. VCs and founders are often talking past each other. Nick thinks VCs underappreciate how brutally hard execution is, while founders often misunderstand fund math and why “good growth” may still not be enough for the next round. The AI era has raised expectations, especially as investors compare every company to the fastest-growing AI breakouts. Nick’s contrarian view: foundation labs moving up the stack does not kill vertical AI. His argument is that the labs’ move into applications and services actually proves the opposite: raw model intelligence is not enough. Durable value may accrue to companies that own the workflow, the customer relationship, the domain context, and the system of work. Really enjoyed this episode of @InvestNStartups. Thanks to Nick for coming on!

@LoganGrafTax Interested. Sent you a DM.

4 years ago, both of my grandparents passed away, starting a court battle that's put 200 years of Texas history for sale. The estate includes hundreds of acres near Marble Falls, TX, that have been in my family since before Texas was Texas. Stephen F. Austin himself granted this land to my ancestor, Captain Jesse Burnam, in the 1820s, one of the original "Old Three Hundred" families. There are stories of him fighting off Native Americans and fighting in wars! That land stayed in our family for five generations. There's a state historical marker on it, placed by the Texas Historical Commission in 2014. My family has never had money in the bank kind of wealth. But I wouldn't sell this land for millions of dollars. Some things matter more than money, and history and nature are two of them. My aunt, the executor, has managed this estate about as badly as it's possible to manage one, burning hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees fighting my mom and uncle, to the point that land had to be sold just to cover the bill. Yes, there was a will involved, but it's complicated... Now, more than 150 acres of it are listed for sale by my aunt. My aunt has no heirs of her own tied to this place. And beautiful, spring fed land that survived the Texas Revolution, five generations of my family, and a war with Mexico might get bulldozed for a subdivision. What I'm hoping for is that it doesn't end with a developer. If you know a rancher, a conservation buyer, a family, or a land trust looking for real Texas Hill Country land with real history, let me know.

@NateSilver538 You’re doing Zion dirty with that honestly. At least he was a human highlight reel when healthy.

Pulisic is Zion Williamson

Huge congrats to @bekacru and @better_auth! We committed on the first call with Bereket and it has been a joy watch him execute at such a high level ever since. @vercel is a wonderful home for Better Auth and I look forward to seeing what they build together!

@bekacru @koomen Congrats, @bekacru. Vercel feels like a natural home for Better Auth. I'm really happy for you and excited to see what you built there next.

Better Auth is joining Vercel! From the very beginning, this team has been my biggest inspiration and has always reflected many of the reasons I started working on Better Auth. I’m incredibly grateful to our community, our team, our investors - in particular @koomen and @arnavsahu341 from @peakxvpartners for believing in my vision and taking a chance on me. And thank you everyone @vercel that made this happen - I'm excited to to be building together!! I’ve shared some thoughts on the blog post linked Excited for what’s ahead ❤️ better-auth.com/blog/better-au…

micro1 is best place to train AI models

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We can finally say AI isn't killing jobs. A new paper from me, @tryramp, and @RevelioLabs uses firm-level spend and workforce data across 21K U.S. businesses to measure AI's impact on jobs. Firms that adopt AI heavily grow headcount 10% over two years following adoption. Low adopters see no statistically significant change.

Watching my wife’s home country play in the World Cup in my home town. Go Uzbekistan!!!

@ntippmann Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fro…

micro1 x @cartesia: The Human Speech Data Project Every language, accent, and speaking style has its own rhythm, texture, and feeling. Building great voice AI means learning from the people who know those details best. That is why micro1 and Cartesia are launching The Human Speech Data Project, an initiative focused on improving the next generation of voice AI through high-quality speech data and human evaluation. The project brings together multilingual speakers, linguists, transcriptionists, native speakers, and voice actors to help: - Capture and evaluate natural conversational speech - Transcribe and annotate audio with a sharp ear for accuracy - Review AI-generated speech for naturalness, correctness, and edge cases - Bring expert judgment into the model improvement process Visit the link in the comments if you’d like to learn more about how you can contribute.

If the US makes the final, get Lee Corso to unretire and have him put on a bald eagle head

“Always go to the funeral”

Single until Series B makes sense to me now. Conor (@contextconor) finally breaks his silence on the movement, and his reasoning is more nuanced than the X discourse suggests. At the end of our podcast I asked him to expand on his thoughts on dating as a founder. 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Trend Backlash (00:35) Origin Story Explained (01:19) Why Series B Matters (02:11) Not Anti Relationship (02:46) Risks of Dating Mid Build (04:33) Guilt and Founder Singles (05:55) Meta Strategy to Live Best Life (07:18) High Bar Romance (07:51) Wrap Up

Terrible loss and very sorry to hear. Josh gave so much to the Austin community and startup ecosystem.

🧵Veria AI autonomously found and demonstrated a critical vulnerability in Aleo, finding a proof forgery in Aleo's snarkVM. The project awarded us the maximum bounty of $65,000 for the find.